Tuesday, 31 October 2023

St Thomas More Catholic Primary School, Alfredton

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (13:25): I had the pleasure last week of attending a local primary school in Alfredton, St Thomas More Primary, which is a wonderful school. It is the second-biggest one in the Ballarat area in terms of Catholic primary schools, and it does some amazing work. I was very privileged to go and meet with the grade 5 and 6 students and talk to them about politics and civics and everything that they could do to get engaged in public debate, and there were a number of very interesting questions that came up – a number of questions actually about the Voice and why that failed, and that was a very interesting discussion. But more broadly I really want to congratulate the young people for inviting me along – it was their idea to have me there – and also I want to congratulate the staff and the teachers, who do such a great job supporting the young people there. They work tirelessly. I do not just mean teachers; I mean support staff as well, in addition to the administrative staff and business managers. They all make a great contribution to what is an awesome school. If you are not aware, St Thomas More has an excellent reputation in Ballarat and is quite often sought after as a place of preference to send young people, so hats off to St Thomas More. Well done, and I look forward to coming back again soon.