Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take up the last few minutes of this debate today by acknowledging that 150 years ago, exactly today, six Irish Mercy nuns arrived in Goulburn to set up the first Mercy congregation on the east coast of Australia. Their influence in those 150 years has been quite extraordinary. The Mercy nuns were established in Ireland by Catherine McAuley, who herself had to enter as a Presentation nun in order to learn how to be a nun so that she could set up her own congregation, which she did with the benefit of her own family estate. In doing so, she set up a congregation that was very different to the other religious congregations of nuns. She wanted to set up a congregation of sisters to serve the poor. The vision she articulated of the Mercy mission was one of serving the poor and the disadvantaged and particularly of serving disadvantaged women. The Mercy order, as it has expanded in Australia, has focused on a few very important things: their nursing mission, their teaching mission, their pastoral care and their care for the aged and infirm. All around the south-east of Australia are Mater hospitals and many, many Mercy schools and colleges that pay tribute to the Mercy mission and the Mercy sisters.

Last weekend there was a joyous celebration of those 150 years of service to our communities. The apostolic nuncio, the archbishop and 1,500 people came to the old cathedral in Goulburn to share in this celebration. We were also joined by two wonderful Irish nuns, who are here in the parliament today, because they represented the two founding houses of the Mercy nuns in Ireland. We have an extraordinary tradition in Australia. There are many people in this place who have been educated by the Mercy nuns, including Senator Parry who told me that he had—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Back interjecting—

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And Senator Back as well, who is joining in. It is a very good fan club. I want to mark the very, very important contribution to education in Australia made by the Goulburn congregation. Goulburn was where the state aid debate played out in 1961. The school inspector of the time came in to St Brigid’s school and told the principal and the parish priest, ‘I’m going to close you down if you do not upgrade those toilets.’ The parish priest and the parish said: ‘Give us some money. We will upgrade when there is some money.’ Of course, there was no money. The school inspector closed down the toilets. ‘Fine,’ said the parish priest and the bishop. They closed the parish schools and 2,000 children were put into the state schools in Goulburn. They lasted a week. The public schools were bursting at the seams; they could not cope. That marked a real commitment by the federal government of the day to make a contribution to Catholic and parish schools in order to ensure that we had some equality of education. So this is a very important point in history and it is one that is recognised and acknowledged worldwide as being quite significant. Let us celebrate 150 years of some feisty Mercy sisters.