Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Young Australians and Youth Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Wicks, as you know, recently—last week in fact—there was a terrible fire at the Morningside State School in my electorate. The consequence of that fire is the school has lost two 1920s buildings that couldn't be saved and they lost their music room. It was a very great shock for our entire community and, of course, for the students of the school and their parents. So many people in our local community who have been there for generations went to that school and a number of my friends went to that school. It's hard to express the impact that a school fire has on a community. But our community, as it always does, has really pulled together.

I have to pay tribute to the wonderful school community. My next-door neighbour, in fact, the school P&C president, David Furze, and his colleague Suzanne Neumann from the P&C have been working incredibly hard to get the school back up and running. I wanted to thank acting principal, Sheryl Kennedy, who had only been there a few weeks when this fire happened and is having to deal with its aftermath and I want to thank Principal Michael Zeuschner from nearby Bulimba State School who has been lending a hand, and thank the wonderful principal, Linda Galloway, from Balmoral High. They have been hosting the students and this weekend they'll host the Fangtastic Fete, which is still going ahead, for the school. They have been getting wonderful support from all sorts of people, from people like the Brisbane Broncos through to Brisbane Airport and small businesses. In fact, Excel Event Equipment Hire have donated a lot of equipment to allow the school fete to go ahead this weekend.

I encourage people in the community to go along to the fete this weekend on 27 October to support the school. Kara Cook, who is the councillor, has been accepting donations for the fete at her office. She and I, and of course the honourable Di Farmer MP, a minister in the government but, most importantly, the member for Bulimba, have been working very closely together to try to make sure that we respond carefully as a community to the Morningside State School fire. Di had the Minister for Education, the honourable Grace Grace MP, at the school immediately. Grace and Di have been working very closely with the Department of Education to try to get demountables into the area and the kids back to their own school, as soon as possible. Of course, Balmoral has been wonderful but the kids want to get back to their own school. Things have been going along very well in terms of the rebuilding and the support from the community. We've all been overwhelmed by the support that the community has shown.

I was lucky enough to see the grade sixers from Morningside. They were here in Canberra the day their school burned down. I was able to catch up with them at the Parliamentary Education Office, where they were participating in the wonderful role play that is done here. Those kids had a great time in Canberra. I was very pleased there was some happiness coming to them connected with school during such a terrible week. So I was very pleased to see them, to catch up with them and to encourage them to consider politics as an option in the future as well.