Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Being in Canberra last week saw me miss out on the Mount Ridley College graduation night, where year 12 student Dean Ieremia was awarded the inaugural Arthur Calwell Rising Star Award—an award recognising significant progress and early achievement in a student's professional or community field of endeavour. Dean Ieremia is a rising star in rugby league. In April this year he became the first student from Mount Ridley College to formally sign a contract with Melbourne Storm. It was an honour to have Mary Elizabeth Calwell, the daughter of Arthur Calwell, the former leader of the Australian Labor Party and the namesake of the electorate I represent, present the award to Dean. In all, it was a very special moment for the Mount Ridley College school community.

Whilst on youth matters, I want to mention the Calwell Youth Committee, an initiative developed and led by Sachetha Bamunusinghe, with the assistance of Aggelos Makrigiorgios, who both work in my office. I have always valued the importance of fostering and mentoring our local youth, who will be, as we all know, the leaders of tomorrow. Our Calwell Youth Committee brings together a collective of young people to discuss issues they find important to them, especially in the local area. The electorate of Calwell is itself a dynamic community, as you would be aware, Deputy Speaker Mitchell, and the youth committee has reflected this by involving a diversity of members from different backgrounds, skills and areas of interest.

According to the 2016 ABS census, there are 23,717—and possibly more now, three years later—young people between the ages of 15 and 24 living in Calwell. Fifty-one per cent of those young people are female and 49 per cent are male. Their top languages are English, Arabic and Turkish, and the top countries of birth are Australia, Iraq and India. Our Calwell Youth Committee will give the young people in my electorate an opportunity to enhance their knowledge of the federal political process; engage in high-level discussions on community and youth issues; encourage intercultural interactions and networking opportunities; and recommend policy suggestions and raise issues with me, as the federal member.

Our Calwell Youth Committee's inaugural event took place last month. It was the Zimbabwe country night. The idea and night itself was driven by one of the committee's members, Kevin Kapeke. As the president of ALIAS, A Look Into African Society, at La Trobe University, Kevin, along with Calwell Youth Committee members, put together an impressive program representing Zimbabwe. We had the opportunity to learn about Zimbabwe's history, food and arts and be treated to performances by local Zimbabwe artists. I want to close by quoting Kevin in his opening speech. He said, 'It is through events like this that we all take turns to speak about our experiences and, hopefully, get a better understanding of how we can work together to make life easier for all of us.'