Page 3060 - Week 10 - Friday, 8 October 2021
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health burdens that many of our young people are already carrying. These are young adults, many of whom are already 18. The minister for education should have been straight with them from the very beginning.
In our current environment, they should be careful not to play with young people’s emotions when making statements about education and going back to school to learn, to socialise and to grow. Young people are intelligent, they are resilient, they are capable of dealing with reality and they deserve our respect.
MR PETTERSSON (Yerrabi) (5.20), in reply: I want to thank all members for their contributions. I think they were all important in their own distinct ways. I thank all members for their support.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Adjournment
Motion (by Mr Gentleman) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Ginninderra electorate—community engagement
MR CAIN (Ginninderra) (5.20): When lockdown started, I started to wonder how I could keep up my Ginninderra constituency work. I have always said that my first priority is to be an effective local member, and it was what I kept as a priority when the lockdown was announced. I have had the pleasure of meeting and reconnecting with a broad spectrum of Ginninderra residents during lockdown. Briefly, I would like to speak about a few of these connections.
In particular, I spent hours on the phone checking on residents in Ginninderra to see how they were coping with the lockdown and whether I could in any way support and assist them. I will be continuing to do this over the next few weeks. I connected with people on issues like fixing their street, their local park and their local shops. I discussed policy. I have heard a broad spectrum of views on a broad spectrum of issues. Some calls were a minute in length; some were half an hour. Most commonly, though, I just listened to what was happening that week or month, and how the lockdown was affecting them.
I heard everything from those in a fortunate position of just plodding along, doing gardening, working from home and doing okay, to virtual learning being difficult and real anxiety about the recovery of their business. Common experiences included loss of ability to visit family and friends, travel restrictions, schooling challenges, forced work from home, and developing a general and heightened appreciation of just plain, personal human interaction.
It is important that local members be engaged with their communities. It is what is expected from us, and it is the very least that we should be doing. I have developed
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