Thursday, 31 October 2024

 Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:08): I wish today to use this opportunity in the house to acknowledge and thank and pay tribute to the Auburn South Primary School community. This morning the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and I visited the school, as the minister did yesterday as well. We visited the school to pay our respects following that awful, tragic accident that occurred on Tuesday afternoon.

At the outset I would like to acknowledge the principal Marcus Wicher, the teachers and support staff at Auburn South Primary School, and I thank them. I had the opportunity today to speak to a number of them and thank them on behalf of the Victorian community for their care and their dedication. Their focus today and yesterday and tomorrow and next week on supporting their students is just remarkable, and I thank them for that dedication. It demonstrates the best of our education system; it demonstrates the best of our community.

I would also like to thank and acknowledge the work of our first responders – the professionals, the paramedics, the police and the other emergency services. I thank them for their professional response but acknowledge that as people, as humans, they too will have been deeply touched by this tragic accident.

Also, over the past 48 hours we have seen an outpouring of love and support for the Auburn South Primary School community, which I was also able to convey to the school today. We saw that as well with the flowers and tributes that are being presented to the school from people right across the community. The Department of Education has significant resources that are being placed within the school, and they will need to be there for some time. It will be some time for this ongoing process of healing to be undertaken. In finishing, I do extend condolences to the family of little Jack, his mum and dad Michael and Jayde, his sisters Olivia and Charlotte, and all of his classmates, who are grieving the loss of their mate Jack.