Childhood Literacy

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (15:16): Childhood literacy is something very close to my heart. It is a passion of mine and I am sure it is a passion shared by many in this chamber. I am particularly pleased that it is also a passion shared by many leaders in the school communities in my electorate. It is not just literacy, it is not just reading, it is about stories—and stories are intrinsic to what make us human: telling each other stories, listening to each other's stories and learning through stories as they are passed down through generations, and so on. So I believe very strongly that reading and stories are an essential part of a child growing up and learning to be an adult.

I have been involved in Elizabeth Park Primary School for a very, very long time. When I was first elected, the long-term principal there, Patrick Moran—someone I still have a very good relationship with—was an excellent principal. He still has a role to play at Elizabeth Park Primary School, working as a peer-support person alongside the current principal, Kath Best, who has been there for a number of years now.

Kath Best has taken the baton from Patrick Moran and really run with it. She is an excellent leader, full of passion for her community, full of passion to build the school and improve the school, but sadly this is her last year. So I do want to pay tribute to Kath and the work she has done. There are some infrastructure upgrades in the pipeline thanks largely to her advocacy and her leadership team, and I do want to pay tribute to her. I am very proud that the person replacing her, I am advised, is also from another local school who has been promoted in the local school system. So it is good to have people in the electorate who are really passionate about literacy, and that is what I am talking about today.

Elizabeth Park Primary School run what they call Reading Superstars awards. A lot of schools do something similar where they encourage kids to read a certain number of books. The Premier's Reading Challenge is the obvious example, but this goes beyond it: it gives books out as gifts and prizes for students. They also invite people like myself, the mayor, various councillors and other community leaders to their school assembly to read to kids, to share stories with the Elizabeth Park kids and also to tell them about our favourite books and books that influenced us and changed our lives and why. We talk about the importance of libraries, too.

In the time I have left, I also want to pay tribute to the amazing art teachers at Elizabeth Park Primary School, particularly Sally and Jen. Every year, like many members here, I run a Christmas card competition where kids from all over the community submit artwork to be placed on a Christmas card calendar that goes out to the entire electorate. I am pleased to announce—I hope I am not pre-announcing it; my staff will kill me—that someone from Elizabeth Park Primary School this year has won. I will keep the name secret for now, but I am very pleased that it is someone from Elizabeth Park because it is a great little community.

Sir, with your indulgence I do just want to talk about one matter in the time I have left. I want to say happy birthday to my beautiful wife, Ann. Ann is overseas at the moment with my two boys, Felix and Miles, and she is giving them an educational experience and a language-immersion experience that is incredible and I hope it will stay with them for the rest of their lives and change the course of their lives. Ann will probably be getting breakfast ready for the boys now, but I know she is an assiduous watcher of the proceedings of this place so I just want to say I love her, I miss her, I am very proud of her and I wish her a very, very happy birthday from afar.

The SPEAKER: The member for Elizabeth saving on Zoom call fees, using the parliamentary live feed to send messages of love—we've got everything today.