Canberra
PM: I want to thank the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, for that introduction.
It was just my enthusiasm to get up that was cutting it short, and I'm joined too by Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Families and Community Services, and also by your local federal member, Andrew Leigh, who is the Member for Fraser.
I get to go to a lot of schools as Prime Minister, in fact I deliberately organise my time so that I do go to a lot of schools, and I do that because the most important thing that is happening in our country today is happening in Australia's schools and that's because young people are our future.
The future of our nation can't be better than you are.
You're the people who are going to make it, you're the people who are going to shape it, and so our future can't be better than you are.
Which is why Australia's young people are so precious to us and across all of the aspects of their lives we want to make sure that young people are safe, that they're healthy, that they get a great opportunity at education, that they get to feel inclusion as an Australian, truly feel part of the nation, and that with all of that grounding and all of that background they then go on to be great Australians.
As the adults in the system, we've got a responsibility to you, a responsibility to make sure that we build that healthy, safe environment for you, a responsibility to make sure every school is a great school, a responsibility to make sure that when you leave school you've got great options and choices, whether that's being an apprentice, whether that's going to university, whether that's going straight into the world of work.
So it's a big responsibility but it's our responsibility as the adults to help create that Australia for you.
It's one that I take very seriously, which is why I focus so much of the time on what's happening in Australia's schools and why particularly in the last few days we've been talking very passionately about making sure every young person gets the chance to become a really good reader because if you don't learn to read at school then unfortunately it can be very, very hard to pick up those reading skills in later life and it can make a big difference to your life.
So there's a lot of things to do to improve schools, a lot of things to do to make sure that our young people enjoy the best environment to grow up in.
We've been thinking about what's a way of ensuring that the voice of children is always heard as government goes about making decisions and what's the best way of making sure that as we make decisions across the really big array of things that government does, that we are taking into account the needs and perspectives of Australian children.
And actually young people, including in this room, were consulted about what was the best way forward and what we should do and we've listened to you and we've come up with having a National Children's Commissioner and we've consulted with you about what that person should do to make sure that government is responsive to the needs of young people.
Now we're going to take the next big step in creating the National Children's Commissioner and that's announcing the very special person who's got the job.
That person is with me today, it's Megan Mitchell and congratulations to her.
And so this is really her first big thing as National Children's Commissioner and I know she's going to always remember coming to your school as the start of a very important job in the life of the Australian nation.
So thanks very much for having us here this morning. Thank you.