Principal's Message
Esther Cummins attends the NSW Constitutional Convention
Congratulations to our Vice Captain, Esther Cummins, who had the great honour of representing the College at the NSW Schools Constitutional Convention at the State Parliament in Sydney. This program is in its 30th year and seeks to promote understanding and informed discussion amongst young Australians about the Australian Constitution and system of government. At the end of the day, all delegates had to elect 30 representatives to attend the National Convention in March 2025.
We are excited to announce that Esther has been chosen by her peers and will represent NSW at the convention next year. As part of this prestigious honour, Esther will attend receptions at both Parliament House with the Prime Minister in attendance and Government House, where Esther will meet the Governor General. Well done, Esther, on such a magnificent achievement.
Esther was nominated by her Legal Studies teacher, Mrs Elaine Hempsell, who said, "Esther is an outstanding student, and I am very proud and not surprised that she impressed the organisers with her intelligent questions and excellent understanding of Constitutional issues".
Image: group photo with The President, The Hon. Ben Franklin MLC and Professor Emerita Anne Twomey AO in the Legislative Council chamber.
Please take a moment to read the following written by Esther about her experience at the convention.
On Tuesday, I attended the NSW Schools Constitutional Convention alongside 94 other delegates from across NSW. We had the privilege of hearing from The President, The Hon. Ben Franklin MLC, who informed us of the history of the Legislative Council, which, this year, is celebrating its Bicentenary. We then heard from Professor Emerita Anne Twomey AO, who shared her knowledge and interpretation of our focus topic for the day, ‘Limits on Freedom of Political Expression’. We had the opportunity to ask Professor Twomey questions. I asked her a question on how Australia can effectively balance the protection of children, as detailed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with the implied right of political expression, in reference to the world of social media and recent campaigns to raise the minimum age for holding a social media account. We were then divided into groups where we participated in discussions on key constitutional issues related to our focus topic. One of the questions that we discussed was whether laws governing protests should limit and regulate the subject matter of protests or whether they should regulate the time, place and method of protests instead. We concluded these group discussions by holding a plebiscite on the regulation of misinformation, disinformation and electoral spending caps and by voting for 30 delegates to attend the National Schools Constitutional Convention.
At the conclusion of the day, groups presented their views on the discussion questions and the delegates to the National Convention were announced. I had the honour of being selected to attend the National Schools Constitutional Convention in Canberra in March of next year alongside student delegates from across Australia.
Esther Cummins
Images taken in the Legislative Assembly Chamber
1) selected 30 NSW delegates
2) selected five delegates from Esther's discussion group.
Enrolment 2025
It would be greatly appreciated if parents/carers could notify me at the College as soon as possible if their son/daughter will not be attending St Joseph's Regional College in 2025. We have a number of applications for places at the College for 2025, and it would be good to be able to offer places where known vacancies will occur. If you are relocating or moving your child to another school, please notify us. Thank you.
Health Alert
We have received notification of a confirmed case of Whooping Cough within our College community. Please take a moment to read through the following information available on the NSW Health website.
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/whoopingcough/Pages/default.aspx
Mrs Tanya Daley
Principal