Tenterfield High School appears to be producing another future leader with year 8 student Ella Wishart participating in YMCA Junior Youth Parliament in Sydney during the recent school holidays.
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Ella read about Keeley Mooney’s experience in the Tenterfield Star as part of Youth Parliament and opted to get involved in the junior version. She ended up in a debate in Parliament House as a member of the Transport & Infrastructure Committee, investigating change in transportation infrastructure particularly in rural and remote areas.
Potential improvements the students proposed included an OPAL-type card that employees could provide to staff to encourage public transport, and skewing public funding ratios in favour of commuters disadvantaged by their remote location. The debate was conducted under the watchful eye of local member of parliament Thomas George as speaker.
Eighty students from around the state worked together and debated hot button issues like climate and mental health policy in addition to transportation.
Now in its fourth year, the program brought together students in Years 7 to 9 who are passionate about leadership and advocacy for a range of activities including the two ‘sitting’ days in the chambers at State Parliament House on September 28 and 29.
This year for the first time, participants went out into the community on Tuesday, September 27 to work on a project in their field.
All ideas discussed in the chamber during YMCA Junior Youth Parliament will be presented to NSW MPs for consideration as policy and legislation.
Ella is interested in continuing on to Youth Parliament, but anticipates that the issues debated there would be more challenging. One thing that did become clear to her from the experience is that she’s not interested in becoming a politician.
“There’s just a lot of politics – not surprisingly – and a lot of etiquette to follow.”
She also learned that it is possible for youth to put forward an opinion, and to make a difference.
She loved the experience, and highly recommends it to others. Mr George was full of praise for Ella’s performance.
“I was very proud of Ella, who was not only a credit to herself but to her family, Tenterfield High School and the community of Tenterfield,” he said.
