Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to share some of the wise words of my young constituents who submitted speeches this year for the Raise Our Voices competition. First, 12-year-old Sam from Woodleigh, Penbank, wrote:

I would like to see in the next 10 years around the area I live in to have more shops because there are not many shops in Fingal.

Most of Fingal is nature and no space for anything like Woollies, Coles and more.

My closest Woolworths and Coles is in Rosebud, I know it's not that far, but it's not walking distance and it's a 20-minute drive.

Secondly, I know this one can be hard but sporting arenas. I play basketball and more sports but there is no basketball courts or stadiums around Fingal, and it is a lot harder to play sports for a team if there are no stadiums around.

Deep down I would love to see more stadiums like the civic centre in Mornington that has multiple sports grounds.

I would enjoy that so much.

Isla, aged 11, from the same school, wrote:

My goal is to have the Mt Martha beach and Marina Cove clean because there is no point of having beaches if they are full of litter.

In ten years, we need our beaches to be clean and beautiful. We should be able to swim in the bay and relax at the beach. Lots of families that go to the beach and prefer them to be clean. Some ideas that might help this problem are signs, bins, a pair of tongs and bucket for people to take and pick up rubbish, or even boat and jet ski free beaches.

We need to protect our wild and marine life. Birds and sea animals could eat rubbish get sick, and maybe even die. Wildlife can become tangled in litter or mistake rubbish for food and eat it, resulting in serious injury or death.

We can't achieve this by ourselves. We need your help.

Finally, Milania, who's aged 11, wrote in her addition to the competition:

I love playing volleyball and I think it is a great sport for small groups of young people.

There is not a lot of volleyball clubs which makes it harder for kids to try and reach their dreams of doing volleyball and when I looked at volleyball clubs near me, I found only 2!

If we start having more clubs and more areas where you can play, I think more kids would want to join and their dreams of doing volleyball can come true.

I think that the government should make volleyball more popular and put more money into making it happen in schools and in sporting clubs.

If we did this, we might have a chance of seeing our country play better in volleyball competitions.

We had a men's and women's team in the Olympics.

Neither made it to the finals.

If there was more volleyball teams around Australia, especially for kids, we might do much better in the Olympics.

I love volleyball and if you do this, many more young kids and young adults might have dreams of playing volleyball that can come true.

My dream would come true, cause I love volleyball.