Tuesday, 31 October 2023

 Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (13:41): I rise after being invited last week to the special celebration of Emerson specialist school in Dandenong, an amazing school that produces special kids for a great future. John Mooney, who has been the principal there for I will not say how many years, but it is over 20 – he is obviously just a young principal there – has been doing an amazing job with students who have special needs. The changes he has made in that school and the way he works with the kids is outstanding, and every single teacher I have spoken to comes back and talks about the work he has done in that school to make sure that it is one of the best schools delivering specialist services for these kids.

I had the pleasure of working at this school for a 12-month period as a police officer in the police in schools program and working with youth development. One of the kids who came back I knew as Big Wal. If anyone looks him up on Instagram, he is flavour_flavour_flavour. A young kid that went through that school, he is so committed to making sure that he takes the opportunities in life that he was given by that school. He is now an entrepreneur and is buying his second business – an amazing story. Young Nick, who I used to speak with about football, who knew every result from every game from when football started up until today’s date, is an amazing outcome – he celebrates the fact that he can travel on public transport as an independent person. I think that is absolutely outstanding from that school. This side will always stand with specialist schools, and I am going to invite our shadow minister out, because obviously a recent royal commission partly had discussions around getting rid of special schools, and we want to make sure that we stand up for them.