Whenever the Humanities Learning Area met this year, we started each session with a slide that reads: Humanities 2023. Continuing to help explain our world.
It is what we try to do as teaching professionals and hope that the students garner how vital it is to study Civics, Politics, History, Geography and the range of Commerce subjects offered at OLMC.
Last week, one of our past students had the opportunity to visit Federal Parliament and hold lobbying meetings with 30 MPs. Charlotte Woods, Class of 2022, was one of 28 advocates flown into the capital to participate in discussions and observe the process around the Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Equity) Bill 2023. This bill asks Parliament to enshrine a duty of care to protect the health and wellbeing of young and future Australians in government decision making, on projects that could significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions.
Charlotte listened to the Senator address the media and she later discussed the issue with Ged Kearney, Dr Monique Ryan and Kate Thwaites. Charlotte described her involvement as amazing ‘to see how everything is run in person and how complex pushing a federal bill is. From the legal side of things to the conflict between parties and within parties, affecting issues pertaining to human rights and international obligations. There was a lot of disparity…’
No matter the outcome of the Duty of Care and Intergenerational Equity Bill, Charlotte has taken her learning from OLMC classrooms, followed her passion and is using her energy to continue to help explain our world. We are so proud of her achievements and look forward to hearing more from her in the future.