And while ensuring our politicians behave themselves with some kind of decorum as they thrash out our democracy’s important political goings-on is an important function of his role as the Speaker, Milton Dick MP, as he is less well known, also regularly gets about the country teaching high school students about federation, democracy and the Australian Parliament.
It’s all part of a program he founded in late 2022 which has seen him visit an incredible 100 schools, each time joined by the school’s local representative – which means individuals from all ends of the political spectrum.
“[For almost 40 years] the Parliamentary Education Office [PEO] has been operating a transformational program for children visiting Canberra … where they get to experience a taste of democracy and the importance of our democracy – but there are millions of students around the country who don’t, or can’t, have that opportunity,” Dick tells EducationHQ.
“So I wanted a program that would outreach into every school … we’ve revamped it, we gave it a reboot, and I’ve successfully seen that now rolled out personally, in just over 100 schools from across the breadth and width of the nation.
“I’ve actually just finished almost a week in regional Victoria – and later this year I’ll be travelling to Central Australia and Western Australia, and hopefully up to the Tiwi Islands – because it’s my fundamental belief that every student in Australia needs to understand our system of government.”
Dick is passionate that every student in every classroom should have the opportunity to understand the nation’s civics program, but for them to also understand that a future prime minister or even a future speaker, could be studying as far away as Charters Towers, or as close as Melbourne’s CBD.
“You never know where the next generation of leaders will come from, and hopefully running this program will inspire as many kids as possible to take a stake in the future of their country,” the Queensland Member for Oxley, says.
The outreach program explores the function, purpose and value of Australia’s democratic system of government by investigating how laws are made through Parliament, the responsibilities of representatives, the formation of government and how government is kept accountable.
Milton Dick, pictured above behind Parliament’s Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms, Andrew House, says he is ‘loving every minute’ of his role as The Speaker of the House, and is keen to expand the schools program to include improving democracy for new citizens.
Dick joins federal parliamentary representatives in their electorates – importantly it’s bi-partisan – and so regardless of party or political persuasion, all are welcome as he descends into schools.
During the visit, students learn a little about the Speaker and the role of their local member, but also role-play themselves in a reconstruction of the parliament. They also have the opportunity to debate issues of interest to them.
“We’ve had everything from school retention rates to whether homework should be banned or mobile phones should be banned,” Dick says.
“We had a discussion this week about lowering the voting age. So all topics are on the table, and depending on the year level, of course, we have a vote in the parliament.”
Dick says a fun part of the visit is when they roleplay question time.
“And I get to grill the local member about the work that they do in terms of their representation and the work that they do locally in their community, but also the important work they do as a legislator,” he says.
“So the kids get a taste of all facets of the parliament – we appointed a Speaker, we appoint a Serjeant-at Arms, a replica Mace is shown and a despatch box where the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition speak from are also part of the presentation.
“We even have official cloaks and official regalia for the Serjeant and a speaker to wear.”
Dick says while the response and engagement levels vary, what is consistent is that young people are very engaged in the future of their country.
“Once we start the discussion and the debate gets going, no matter where I travel – from Central Australia to small schools off the coast of Tasmania ... all the kids have different ideas, different improvements that they’d like to see.
“You really do get a variety of issues, but I have been enormously impressed by the depth and knowledge that particularly school students have regarding their democracy.”
Naturally, kids being kids, the Speaker is always inundated with questions and students are eager to hear about life in the Canberra bubble, but also to tell him a little about their own lives.
“I always get asked how much I earn and another popular favourite is ‘have you met Donald Trump?” he laughs.
Dick says he’s been ‘enormously impressed by the depth and knowledge that particularly school students have regarding their democracy’.
“I normally get ‘what do you do if you have any spare time?’ And ‘what are some hard or difficult situations – and how do you manage them?’, so you can see the kids are thinking about all sorts of things.”
He’s had one student tell him about ‘roo shooting’ and pig hunting – but Dick maintains that children everywhere are very respectful and he’s always impressed with the level of information and the preparedness that goes into a visit.
“It’s such an honour and privilege, and it’s been my mission as the 32nd speaker, to improve what I call ‘democracy literacy’ across the country, and improving the access and knowledge to the future lawmakers in the country and hopefully inspiring a few of them along the way,” he says.
As for the future, Dick says he is ‘loving every minute’ of his role and is keen to expand the schools program to include improving democracy for new citizens and looking at how members of parliament can deeply engage to improve civics education for new citizens.
“It is so important to understand the responsibilities; there’s rights with citizenship, but there’s responsibilities – voting, participating in democracy, or even people campaigning for office themselves,” he says.
As for the many teachers he comes into contact with, Dick says he knows they do a remarkable job often under enormous pressure.
“And there’s always teachers who give me some constructive feedback about what we should be doing in education. That’s always an added bonus,” he says.
“And I always feed them into the Education Minister, Jason Clare.
“He’s done a terrific job in improving and increasing the amount of money that we spend on getting kids to Canberra as well.
“It’s very much a two-pronged approach, it’s about kids from far and remote communities getting that opportunity, from even as far as Cocos Island and Christmas Island coming to Canberra – and if they can’t get to Parliament, we’ll bring Parliament to them.”
