Kimberley in Youth Parliament – Part II

My name is Lei Yuen and I had the pleasure to attend the Youth Parliament Camp in Perth during the school holidays representing the Kimberley as the Member for the Kimberley.  I got to go down to Perth, attend Parliament House and debate on bills made by fellow committees. My committee Jobs, Trade and Commerce (the BEST committee) made and presented a bill called Youth and Small Business Relief, a bill aimed to support small businesses and educate the youth on how to start businesses. It was a very inspiring to meet people from all of the state with different views and perspectives, I also got to meet Tremane Baxter-Edwards from Whyndam who sat in the Kimberley seat in 2022 but this year was the Member for Kalgoorlie and the deputy leader of opposition. I was very inspired by the many high profile people I got to meet who were kind enough to sponsor Youth Parliament and were our speakers. We spent 3 days at Parliament House doing debates in the Legislative Assembly as if we were real members of Parliament. Another speech I had to do was a 60 second speech that each member does is a Private Members Statement which is about our representing electorates, I spoke about the rich and diverse culture the Kimberley had and the difficult cost of living here compared to the metropolitan areas. During the 6 days I was on camp I also got to go to the Governor’s House for morning tea where His Excellency addressed all our bills and signed them off as all of them had passed (thankfully) in Youth Parliament Chamber and then followed by a lunch at Council house where we unfortunately didn’t get to meet Basil Zempilas but had his deputy address the 29^th Youth Parliament Members. Youth Parliament is an amazing program that I feel very privileged to be apart of, I could see all the work and passion that gets put in by fellow members writing their bills and speeches, Taskforce working very hard to make sure the program running very smoothly. Shout out to my committee’s taskforce advisor Celeste who had to deal with endless hours of meetings and migraines with my committee who were renowned to be the most unhinged in and outside of chamber… I would also like to thank Chris Mitchell the President of the Broome Shire and Ms Divina Grace D’anna MLA who both kindly sponsored me to attend the Youth Parliament camp.