Thank you very much to everyone for making me so welcome. It’s a real honour to be here at Bamaga School in the NPA.
It’s a real thrill to be spending some time in this part of Australia and I am very pleased that with me, with you here today, I’ve got a number of my ministerial colleagues. We’ve got Senator Nigel Scullion who is the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, we’ve got Mr Scott Morrison who is the Minister for Social Services and we’ve got Senator Simon Birmingham who is the Assistant Minister for Education.
So, all of them have a very significant influence on the lives of people here and by coming up to Bamaga, by spending time in the Torres Strait, we are getting to experience what your life is like, we get more insights into how the Government in Canberra can be more helpful to you here in Cape York and the Torres Strait.
Now, kids, I just want to say a few words to you if I may. I hope you like school because school is very important. When I was your age – quite a long time ago, I regret to say – when I was your age there were some days when I thought, “Why am I bothering to go to school? What’s the point? I’ve had a fight with some of my mates at class, the teachers and I are arguing, what’s the point of coming to school? I don’t like some subjects, what’s the point of coming to school?”
Well, the point of coming to school is that it actually sets you up for the rest of your life. Yes, you’ve got lots of friends here. Yes, you’ve got teachers who care for you and that’s good, but the point of coming to school is that it sets you up for the rest of your life.
If you want to be a nurse or a teacher or a police officer or if you want to have a business, going to school is really, really important because you’ve got to learn to read, to write, to count, to think. You’ve got to understand things, not just about life here in Bamaga but about life in the big cities, not just about the history of your family but about the history of our country and our world. All of this you get at school.
So, I want to say thank you for being here at school. You honour your parents, you respect your teachers and you serve yourself when you come to school every day.
I had the pleasure of meeting up with some of you and your colleagues at Injinoo School and at the senior school earlier today when I was on the bus with Robert, your attendance coordinator, and I want to say how pleased I was to see you all there. When I asked some of the kids on the bus what they wanted to do with their lives, they all had good ideas – all had good ideas about being and doing good things when they leave school.
So, this is important and I’m really pleased to be here.
I hope you enjoy the day and I hope you come to school every day, not just some days, but every day. Every day matters and every day you are here, you are setting yourself up to have more and more good days for the rest of your lives.
So, thank you kids, thank you teachers. I know that this is a very good school, particularly by the standards of remote Australia, and thank you parents for sending your children to school. It really does matter and just about the best thing you can do for your kids is make sure they go to school every day.
Thanks everyone. Lovely to be here. I look forward to saying hello to all of you later on.
[ends]