Page 1201 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 10 April 2018
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The poem written by senior division winner Eden Sellick from Dunlop richly recreates an important day in the life of an Italian ancestor and subtly introduces the combination of excitement and fear that often accompanies migration and the forging of multiple cultural identities, as in this passage:
Papa says we are moving to a new place soon
A place called Australia
I wonder if they have any festivals there
With big feasts
And lots of families
I wonder if they talk funny
Do they have a patron saint?
I bet they drink lots of wine at the festivals just like we do
And they probably sit with all their family and friends
It will be sad though because none of our family will be there
It will be just us
Alone
Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to congratulate these winners and all the other children and young people who took the opportunity to enter this competition. I am proud of them. As I said earlier, these young people are our future. Unfortunately, as many of them have confided in me, they feel that they face an uncertain future. They worry about unemployment and underemployment. They struggle with bullying at school and elsewhere. Many of them have no clear sense of identity. Far too many of them experience homelessness.
I therefore call upon the ACT government to take these young people and the issues that they face seriously. It is good to talk about our young people during Youth Week. It is far more important to focus on the issues that are foremost in their minds throughout the year.
Planning—Woden
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee) (4.30): I talk a lot in this place about Woden town centre. I am going to talk about it again today because it is exciting to see change taking place in the town centre—the new residential developments, light rail stage 2 on its way and now a new focus on place-making in the centre. While many of the spaces in Woden are privately owned, those that are in ACT government control present an opportunity for improvement and activation, particularly Woden town square.
On 26 March, Woden Library hosted the Woden experiment town hall, kicking off a discussion on how we can better activate our public space in the town square. The town hall was part of the six-week initial discovery phase of the Woden experiment project, funded by the ACT government as part of our efforts to support the regeneration at the town centre.
We are partnering with Street Furniture Australia, who are familiar to many in the Canberra community as those responsible for the backyard experiment activation of
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