Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the great things about the Mallee is the people, and the people start with our students. I have some great award winners across the electorate of Mallee—not only awards we hand out but also ones that have been recognised state-wide. I want to touch on the Mallee Excellence Awards, which reward endeavour and leadership. We had a series of recipients right across the Wimmera and Mallee this year. Rahul Hariprakash, Lexi Thomas, Rachel Downes, Sophie Cole, Renae Feder, Magdalene Toga, Nicholas Opie, Zoee Howie, Luke Busbridge, Georgia Leutner—I'm murdering these; my pronunciation's not great!—Stacey Tunley, Drewan Jennings-Davey, Declan Anderson, Emma Berg, Molly Konecny and Jasmine Lacey are all to be commended. They are great, outstanding people.

In the electorate of Mallee we had the Australian Apprentice (Trainee) of the Year, a young man called Dustin Cross—he wants to have a future in agriculture and is doing a certificate IV in farming. Can I say, Dustin, that I did a certificate IV in farming, so you may not finish up being a farmer—you might finish up in this place—but it's a great starting point. We need great people in agriculture. The Australian Schools-based Apprentice of the Year has come out of the Mallee—Bethany Simpson, with a certificate III in business administration—and the VCE Leadership Award has gone to Joe Collins. Joe has trained at a small country school called Tyrrell College in Sea Lake. They have a unique farming program. I saw some of Joe's work at the Speed field days last year or the year before. He was doing aquaculture and, essentially, he had built a fully integrated system where fish were being fed, then the plants were filtering the water, and the water was coming back in with fish feed.

What's happening in some of our country schools across the electorate of Mallee is so impressive. I was in Kaniva the other day. There's a principal there and he said to me: 'Everyone talks about trying to train students so they can go to university in Melbourne and leave our district. I want to train students who are going to stay in our town, who are the people I want to drink with in the pub when they grow up to be great young men and women, but who are also going to contribute to the school.' Those sorts of teachers are fantastic and I want to pay tribute to them—those teachers who really see that their role isn't just to go to work and get paid; their role is to invest in our young Australians so that they will then grow up to be proud country people who want to stay in the country and grow our community. Well done to the Mallee Excellence Awards winners; well done to the Australian Apprentice (Trainee) of the Year, the Australian Schools-based Apprentice of the Year and the VCE Leadership Award winner. They make me very proud to represent the people who live in our patch.