Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development (Senate)) Share this | Hansard source

As we round off this year—and this could possibly be my last contribution for this year or, who knows, the last one for this parliament, I don't know; Senator Cash might have a fairer idea than me—I want to go out on a happy note. I want to share with the Senate and those who are listening a magnificent project that we are going to have in this country very soon. It was brought to my attention in 2016 through a very, very close friend of mine, the one and only Robbie Williams—not the part-time singer that has recorded millions and millions of dollars worth of music, but my mate Robbie Williams from Fremantle—through a good mate of his, Mr John Goldsmith: the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus. This is a multimillion dollar, multifaceted mobile recording studio that runs through the roads of the United States. It's been going for 21 years. There is one in Europe that's been running since 2013. It gives the opportunity for kids in schools to put down music, write songs, make recordings, tell stories, make short films—all sorts of things—as it rolls around the United States and Europe.

I got on the bus in September of 2016 in New York. I was at the Come Together New York tenancy launch of the Lennon bus, where I had the pleasure of meeting the co-founder and CEO, Mr Brian Rothschild, and also got to meet Yoko Ono. There was a thought that maybe we could borrow the European bus for a three-year tenancy here in Australia.