The staff at Centennial Parklands organise the event every year to teach students about how our ecosystem and the importance of conservation.

It has been running for five years and it is estimated that over 1000 plants and trees have been planted, such as banksia, blueberry ash and angophera.

It’s a great feeling to be able to walk through the park and see something that you have planted in bloom.  It’s also a great reminder of how important green spaces are and that, just a stone’s throw from the CBD, we have some beautiful areas worth exploring.

At the moment students with a disability can expect vastly different treatment depending on which State they live, what type of school they go to, and how their disability is classified.

Furthermore, funding is not portable, meaning support and assistance is directed to schools and does not follow the student.

An elected Coalition Government will work at a Ministerial Council level to secure national agreement on definitions of disabilities. Nationally consistent definitions are the first crucial step on the road towards providing greater assistance for all students with disabilities.

Malcolm said he was particularly pleased that the Coalition will, for the first time, provide students with disabilities with portable funding through an Education Card worth up to $20,000 per year, indexed to inflation.

He said that the Coalition will commence the Education Card from January 2012 based on agreed nationally consistent definitions, providing portability of the entitlement between schools or school systems. This will provide real choice to parents and a guarantee of a better education for students.

The entitlment will follow the student and will bypass state educational bureaucracies, by bing paid straight to the educational institutions concerned.

It has been estimated that the roll-out of the Education Card will initially provide assistance to almost 6,000 disabled children and their families.

The Education Card will be introduced incrementally and in a targeted manner – commencing with those who need it most and with reference to the newly created disability definitions. Students most in need will get help first, with eligbility to be expanded as the federal budgetary position improves.

These measures are the first installment in the Coalition’s disability policy and will cost $314 million over the forward estimates.

Professor Peter Shergold AC from The Centre for Social Impact and Rev Robert Forsyth launched the report which looks at the depth and diversity of social exclusion in our city .

The report details evidence of disadvantage from three groups of people who use Anglicare’s services: ageing parent carers of people with disabilities,  African refugees and people who access Anglicare’s emergency relief centres,. The report makes a number of recommendations on how to break the cycle of social exclusion.

Anglicare has worked hard right across the electorate, particularly in the areas of mental health, and joins other community organisations such as the Wayside Chapel, Matthew Talbot, and Oasis, in forming an integral part of our community.

I am sure the findings in this report will encourage governments at all levels to change their approach when addressing the challenge of social exclusion.

The Anglicare report can be downloaded from http://www.anglicare.org.au/news-research-events/latest-news/the-state-of-sydney-2010

Following this very interesting discussion, we took a tour of the school’s new Kitchen Garden – what a great initiative! We were told the children love planting, weeding, and learning more about the herbs and vegetables that they follow from seedling to fruit. We all had some snow peas, admired the beans, and took a walk along the school’s aptly named Bush Track, that the children love to walk down during lunchtimes.

It was also a walk down memory lane for me visiting my old school. 

A great afternoon overall, and a testament to the leadership of the Principal and teachers, and the great efforts of parents in keeping Vaucluse Public School green.

This is yet another critical issue where Labor is all talk and no action – and this time lives are on the line.

Mental health experts including Australian of the Year Professor Patrick McGorry have already dismissed Labor’s policy as a “devastating” disappointment. 

The Gap was the only suicide ‘hotspot’ mentioned in the Prime Minister’s speech.  It was the only one mentioned in her media release.  The Gap was explicitly called out in online fact sheets released with Labor’s mental health announcement

Yet in reality The Gap project has not received the $2.1 million it needs.  It hasn’t received a cent.

Instead, if Labor is re-elected, the Woollahra Council will have to apply to the Federal Government for a third time (following two previous rejections) to receive funding.  There is no guarantee of success.

As Woollahra Mayor Andrew Petrie says: “It just doesn’t make sense. Now we have to go through another application process, when time is of the essence when we are talking about people’s lives.  This project has been on the drawing board for three years, it has widespread support, it is the only national suicide hotspot of its kind and the project is ready to go.”

In contrast to Labor, the Coalition has committed to fully funding this vital project.

We all know Labor loves bureaucracy.  But yet another protracted application process, with no guarantee of a green light from Canberra at the end of it, is ridiculous when lives are at stake. 

Leading mental health experts were consulted in the design of the project and the Federal Government’s own National Suicide Prevention Strategy task force says The Gap project is world’s best practice.  It should move ahead urgently.

The exhibition’s title ‘Girt by Sea’ is taken from Australia’s national anthem and ties in with Bondi’s sea-side location.

The artists have interpreted the line ‘Girt by sea’ – some have related how climate change has changed the way we are ‘girt by sea’, while others have focused on Indigenous Australians relationship with the sea.

The exhibition, featuring 49 artworks in total, is being hosted by Waverley Council at the pavilion and will run until August 1.