Tuesday, 31 October 2023

Wurreker Awards

Chris COUZENS (Geelong) (13:58): I want to congratulate the Geelong Aboriginal community and Gordon TAFE for recently winning a Wurreker award, the Aboriginal awards in education. This is really special for my community. The Aboriginal community actually spent two years developing that course, the mumgu-dhal course, which is aimed at young Aboriginal students who are not in the school system but want to continue their education in a culturally safe space. So I was really proud to see that Gordon won that award, and I do want to acknowledge the Minister for Skills and TAFE and the Minister for Education at the time James Merlino who made a commitment to get this course off the ground and provide the funding that was required. We are now hearing particularly from young women who have been involved in the course, which has been highly successful, that they now realise that they can go to university – something that was never in their minds previously.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.