Prime Minister: Well thank you very much Ms Hallahan and all of the staff and parents, but above all boys and girls thank you so much for inviting me back to my old school. You know, I was, my, when I was in second class I was in that little classroom just the second one along there. It was - I thought it was much bigger then though. Everything seems a lot smaller when you come back to school after you’ve grown up. Guys you’re doing such a great job looking after your school, cleaning up, focusing on the environment.
Ian Kiernan who has been a real inspiration to me over many years founded Clean up Australia, focusing all of Australians’ attention on keeping our environment number one in our priorities. He’s done a great job about that and I’m sure he’ll say a little bit more about it to you in a minute. Can I just say something about your future? Everything that we do, in the Government, in Parliament, everything that I do as Prime Minister, is directed at one big thing – and it’s your future. Everything that I do is focused on ensuring that you have greater opportunities.
That you have the chance to enjoy the most exciting times ever. You know your futures are going to be more exciting with bigger opportunities than your parents or your grandparents could ever have been. You are young Australians in the most exciting times in our history. So study hard, work hard, respect each other, enjoy the great time you have here at school and make sure that you continue to equip with yourselves with the studies, with all of the learning, all of your maths, your arithmetic, your English, all of those things that you learn here are going to enable you to realise amazing dreams when you grow up. You know this is, this is the best time to be your age. There has never, children of your age have never had more to look forward to than you do today.
The world is a more exciting place than ever. The opportunities for you are greater than ever. When I was a little boy here at this school I was full of dreams and ideas and plans for the future and I know you are too. Good luck, work hard, but above all remember you can do anything. There is nothing, no dream, that any of you cannot achieve with your confidence, with your optimism, with hard work you can do anything. You have great exciting futures ahead of you, go for it. It is wonderful to be back at Vaucluse Public.
Thank you very much.