Page 3804 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 28 October 2015
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deaf or hard of hearing not only affects the individual but their family and friends, so helping to create greater understanding of these issues is an important part of encouraging inclusion in our community.
I would like to thank my parliamentary team members: Senator Bridget McKenzie, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Senator Jo Lindgren, Senator Jenny McAllister and Senator Anne McEwen. I thank them for putting up with me. I had never played netball in my life, so I was potentially a bit of a challenge for them to deal with.
While the silent sports challenge is held around International Week of the Deaf, in January 2016 Adelaide will play host to the Australian Deaf Games. That has a variety of sports, including netball, baseball, cricket and touch football, to name just a few. The Deaf ACT team that we played against in netball will be travelling to Adelaide to participate. I wish them all the very best in their endeavours in Adelaide in January. It is likely to be quite a bit warmer in Adelaide in January than it was a few weeks ago in Canberra.
I would like to thank all of the Deaf ACT participants, including David Brady. As I said he is chairman of the Deafness Forum of Australia. Chloe Nash acted as umpire. Some of you may know Chloe from my office. I also thank Daniel Shannon, Greg Ophel, Sarah Ashleigh, who is only 15 years old, Diana Cuiffetelli, Tamara Hone, Aisha Hitaua, and Angie Baker, who is a hearing-plus coach.
While I participated in the silent netball challenge, during that week on other days there was silent touch football and silent Aussie rules, also against parliamentary teams. So it was a very successful undertaking and I enjoyed very much being part of it, despite the early hour of the morning. I think that our federal parliamentary colleagues appreciated the opportunity to interact with members of the deaf community and come to a greater understanding of the challenges that they face.
Parliament of youth on sustainability
MS FITZHARRIS (Molonglo) (6.28): I rise tonight to speak about a meeting I held in my capacity as chair of the planning, environment and Territory and Municipal Services committee with student ministers from the parliament of youth on sustainability. The parliament of youth on sustainability is an initiative held by SEE-Change where 162 students from 24 schools in the ACT this year gathered to present and debate their green paper proposals to tackle climate change. The youth parliament was held in June at the Australian National University.
Of the 43 proposals presented at the parliament, 11 were selected to be announced to our ACT Legislative Assembly colleagues, Minister Corbell, Minister Rattenbury and Ms Lawder. Of the 11 presented, the final six proposals were voted to be included in the parliament white paper. It was these final six proposals that I and our deputy chair, Mr Coe, were privileged enough to have had presented to us.
The student ministers who spoke to us ranged in year levels from kindie to year 12. All of the student ministers were impressively articulate and it was fantastic to see how passionate they were about their proposals. I mention three in particular that caught my eye.
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