E&OE...........
Well thank you very much Sally, Principal, Senator Scullion, students, ladies and gentlemen. This has been quite a special time for me coming to this College. I have heard quite a bit about it and I was told that it provided an opportunity for Aboriginal young people from different parts of central Australia and the top end to come and further their education, particularly to get a better knowledge of English. But actually coming here and seeing the special classes and understanding the need to provide personal help in relation to language and other things has been quite an eye opener.
This is the second experience I have had today of what I might call distance education. I spoke on the School of the Air recently, a few hours ago, and that of course took me to people all over the top part of Australia and here I am at Yirara College which brings together young indigenous men and women from different parts of about the same area.
I never believe at gatherings like this in making long speeches but to leave a simple message and say something that I hope might be of help and people might remember a little – and that is to say to all of the students here the most valuable thing that you can do and the thing that will help you most if you want a happy and good life is to learn and to have a good education. That is very, very important. I know some of you, I';m sure all of you, are thinking of your future and can I say to you that there is nothing more important to that future than to take every chance, every opportunity to learn. Stay here as long as you possibly can because it will make a huge difference to your future.
All the experience I';ve had in life tells me that if you have a good education and you have the support of that, it does make a huge difference. And I know that it looks good perhaps to leave school and to try something else but it doesn';t work out as well in the long run. If you stay at school, you';ll learn as much as you possibly can, you';ll get a better job – you';ll get a job, you';ll get a better job – and you';ll have more opportunity to enjoy your life and if you know more and learn more, you';ll understand a lot more and that';s going to help you a lot in the years ahead. And that';s really all I wanted to say to you.
This is a great school. It is supported entirely by the Federal and the State and the Territory Government. A very special project from the Federal Government in relation to language and literacy but the caring environment of the Lutheran Church adds something special to it and I certainly want to endorse that that Church has a great record of mission work in this part of Australia.
My message to you is please stay at school for as long as possible because in the end that will mean more to you than anything else. You might not think so at the moment but please believe me – it does matter in the end. The more education you have, the greater likelihood there is that you';ll have a happy life and you';ll have a long life and a full life and that is I';m sure what all of you want.
Thank you very much for having me and good luck to all of you. Thank you.
[ends]