Julia Banks (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Only a few weeks ago the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Julie Bishop, lauded as the best foreign minister in the world and an amazing role model to Australian girls and women, joined me at Huntingtower School in Mount Waverley to recognise outstanding local volunteers, along with hundreds of their families and friends. The Chisholm Volunteer Awards acknowledge and celebrate the important and valuable contribution of volunteers across Chisholm. The diverse group of awardees come from the Chisholm community, with the youngest awardee aged 12 and the oldest aged well over 90.

Our Chisholm Volunteer of the Year is Yvonne Putz, from the outstanding Easter Volunteers group. Her recognition, together with all the 75 volunteers who were nominated by their organisations, clubs and groups, is so well deserved. My thanks to the principal, Mr Sholto Bowen, and the Huntingtower community for hosting us in their new performing arts centre. I'd like to acknowledge Chavelle Lui, the inaugural winner of the Chisholm volunteer essay competition, and I promised her I would share the winner's essay in this House so it could be recorded in Hansard. To all the young students at Huntingtower and in the broader Chisholm area, being respectful means loyalty and integrity and keeping one's promises. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure, as I promised, to read out Chavelle's winning essay:

Volunteering is about dedicating a portion of one's life, no matter how big or small, to make a difference to the life of another without expecting anything in return. It is the acknowledgement that no one person is worth more or deserves more than another. Whether it is spending a gap year in a remote African village or one hour a week at the local St Vinnie's, it is the act of contributing rather than consuming. A volunteer is the epitome of compassion, generosity and selflessness, and the volunteer feels happy and fulfilled to be genuinely appreciated. Time is the most valuable possession and the greatest gift an individual can give. Volunteers have the heart to give even when pressed for time. We can make a living by what we get, but we can make a life by what we give. As Anne Frank said, 'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.'

I thank Chavelle Lui and everyone at Huntingtower College for what was a magnificent day. I thank all the students for contributing their essays. They were all brilliant. It was very, very difficult to make a choice. I congratulate Chavelle, and I'm so pleased that I've been able to have this opportunity to read out her essay.