Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to say a few words this evening about a very special day I had last week visiting the west coast of Tasmania, a place that I love and try to get to whenever I can. I was given the opportunity to visit the set of an SBS series called The Tailings, which had been filming in and around the town of Queenstown for six weeks. Queenstown has generously embraced the 98 per cent Tasmanian film crew, providing homes, filming locations and warm hospitality. The economic stimulus from this film shoot—the number of bed nights and meals served—has been vital to a town pushed to the edge by the COVID recession. A big thank you to producer Liz Doran and the whole team working on The Tailings. I can't wait to watch the series on SBS next year and see that amazing wild landscape on our screens.

Students from the local Mountain Heights School were enthusiastic participants in the filming, acting as extras in many scenes, and the school itself embraced this novel learning experience. I visited the school the next day to participate in a mentorship program they are running for their students.

The west coast of Tasmania is wild, remote, rugged and challenging. That challenge is not just one of geography. Like many communities established through mining, it's a 'boom or bust' sort of place. Queenstown's mine, Mount Lyell, has ground hundreds of thousands of tonnes of copper and other minerals out of the earth, helping to build the economy of Tasmania, and it is powerfully linked to the life of the town. The mine, established in 1893, is currently closed but could soon have a new owner, so we're hoping for a good news story. It has been shut down, sold and reopened on several occasions, often putting the future of the town in peril. It has been the scene of terrible tragedy and loss of life, leaving families and whole communities shocked and grieving.

Over 127 years, the fortunes of Queenstown have waxed and waned, mineral prices have surged and crashed and recessions, depressions, tragedies and wars have taken their toll. Booms have created salad days, new families have moved in and new communities from around the world have come with new ideas. This points to the special strength and resilience of west coasters. They have built other industries to broaden their economic base. Tourism is now a key driver for the west coast, but the COVID-19 shutdown has impacted tourism operators heavily.

Queenstown is also now the scene of some of the most vibrant arts projects in Tasmania. It's home to the biennial, unique and extraordinary Unconformity festival, led by Queenstown raised Trav Tiddy. It is home to artist Ray Arnold and his collaborators at LARQ—landscapeartresearchqueenstown—which investigates through art the contested space of the west, where wilderness meets the technological forces of the mining, forestry and power industries. It is impossible not to have your heart captured by this place with its raw beauty, its scarred landscape, its wonderfully fickle weather, its storytellers, its mysterious places, its extraordinary history and its resilient, determined people. Its beauty is both as complex and as challenging as its economy.

The west coast is a youth unemployment hotspot. Tasmanian youth unemployment is likely to reach 25 to 35 per cent by the end of the year. Chronic disease is rife. There is a disgraceful shortage of allied health services, such as pain management, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and diabetes education and management. In the face of such adversity stands a strong community that loves its town and its unique sense of place.

Mountain Heights School is a kindergarten to year 12 school located in Queenstown, catering for approximately 210 students. It has magnificent, committed staff who work hard every day to maximise opportunities to ensure that the students leave school with the skills to face life with tenacity, resilience, entrepreneurship, inquiry and hope. It has an amazing cohort of students—the students who recently so enthusiastically embraced their role as extras in The Tailings film shoot. I want to commend all at Mountain Heights high for having the vision to run a mentorship program, inviting community members and people like me in to share their stories, listen to the students and encourage them with their endeavours.

As a former factory worker and union organiser, and now a senator, I deeply understand the importance of assisting people to be able to tell their story, find their voices, seek the support they need, work cooperatively with others, develop a vision and work towards it, and acquire the skills needed to realise it, even if it takes years of tenacious advocacy and planning. So now I come to 14-year-old Jed.

I was paired with Jed for the mentoring program. I got to hear his vision and plans, and I was granted the privilege of questioning and encouraging him and sharing what in my life story might be useful to him as he shapes his future. Jed is a way off from knowing what he wants for his future career, but he knows this: his grandfather had a lathe that he had loved and gifted to his grandson.

Jed had loved learning how to use his grandfather's lathe. Looking to make some pocket money and finding out the possibilities of his lathe, Jed started making pens out of Tasmanian timber offcuts—and we know that Tasmania has so many beautiful and remarkable timbers. To complete his pens, Jed borrowed $150 from his father to purchase the pen inserts. He practised and practised on the lathe and learnt to make his pens and then started selling them to his teachers at school. In doing so, he learnt fine woodworking skills. He has learnt how to do some basic marketing of his pens in his community. He's paid back the $150 that he borrowed from his dad. He also learnt that he wasn't making much money at all after he paid for his materials and repaid his loan, so now, with encouragement from the mentorship group—and I did give him a little bit of a nudge—he's learning to properly cost his products so that he can earn something from his hard work in his fledgling business. Jed has also learnt he loves working with his hands to make things, and when he leaves Mountain Heights School he wants to gain an apprenticeship.

After the session, I was left reflecting on all the skills that Jed is acquiring through this project: budgeting, costing, estimating overheads, managing a business loan, marketing and customer relations. There's also all the maths and communication skills he is practising as well as the fine skill of turning beautiful Tasmanian timber on his grandfather's lathe. I was also left reflecting on the positivity of a school culture that brings that project into his learning framework and strengthens it. It was a salient reminder to me of our job in this place to ensure that our public education is well funded and strong; to ensure that remote communities like Queenstown have decent resources in health care and services so that they can continue to raise their families and make a good life in Queenstown; to ensure there is decent work for Jed's parents and sibling; and to absolutely ensure, when Jed is ready to leave Mountain Heights School and move on to the next challenge in his life, there is an apprenticeship for him to go to in a prospering enterprise supported by a rebuilt TAFE system that can give him the training that he wants.

I want to thank Jed and his school, his classmates, his teachers and especially his grandfather. And I want to thank the people of Queenstown for their always-warm welcome last week. As I drove out of the school gates, I noticed the sign carefully placed to be read on departure. It said: 'There is a future version of me who is proud I was brave enough.' May that apply to Jed, his west coast community and to all of us in this place.