◆ JOB-READY GRADUATES
Jacqui Lambie is right It just got harder for working class kids like me to go to university I know Senator Jacqui Lambie is a controversial figure, but after scuttling the Federal Government’s refugee phone ban and now delivering a powerful speech on working-class kids, I am starting to warm up to her. Her recent speech on the floor of the Senate opposing the Government’s university changes because they would make it hard for working-class students to go to university resonated with me on so many levels. I know because I was one of those working-class students she talked about.
Danijel Malbasa, CFMMEU Senior National Legal Officer
18
ADVOCATE VOL. 27 NO. 3 ◆ NOV 2020
I went to one of the poorest high schools in this country – Parafield Gardens High School. A school with no culture of students going on to tertiary education. It was assumed, and accepted, by those around me that if you came from the northern suburbs of Adelaide, you would end up on the factory floor. Completing Year 10 was the ceiling. You were then ushered into vocational training and then into a low-paid, insecure job behind a till or on a factory line (if you were lucky).
