Mr GARRETT (Kingsford Smith) (9.36 a.m.)—I want to place on record my admiration for the terrific efforts that teachers, kids and their extended families at La Perouse Public School put in for my visit to the school on the first day of spring last week. La Perouse Public School is a small public school located only a stone’s throw from the Captain Cook landing site at Botany Bay. It is a school which has a high proportion of Indigenous students. The challenges that students, teachers and families face as a consequence of the history of dispossession and dislocation are still great. There are kids at this school who experience the loss of family members on a more frequent basis than is the norm in our society. Yet they presented two highly creative and very well executed dance performances to me.

Watching students from different backgrounds perform Aboriginal dances from North Queensland showed me reconciliation in action. Subsequently, in discussion with me as federal member, the students at La Perouse showed a very keen interest in the work of the parliament and political issues generally. I had spoken out previously on the huge risk to the biodiversity and living culture of North Australia as a result of the ravenous spread of cane toads across the landscape. The students at La Perouse had clearly taken an interest in this particular topic, both from my web site and the parliamentary record. They asked many thoughtful questions about cane toads and made some very useful suggestions as to how they might be stopped.

The teaching staff, students and families made me feel very welcome and I was pleased to see first-hand the enthusiasm and dedication that all involved with La Perouse Public School displayed. In discussion at the school, I discovered that one of the residual matters on the minds of both students and teachers at La Perouse is what prospects there are for a renewed and invigorated effort at advancing reconciliation. Labor remains profoundly committed to the reconciliation task—I assured them of that—in this parliament and in the community. But it is in the classrooms of schools like La Perouse Public School that authentic reconciliation is happening every day. I salute those efforts and offer my encouragement to the school community, who showed me in my visit that, notwithstanding the hurt and suffering their families have experienced, there is hope, and it can be clearly seen at La Perouse Public School.