I don't think there are many members of parliament who can cite Rotary as one of the fundamental reasons why they've ended up in this place, but I can, and so I'm thrilled to be able to speak on the 100-year anniversary of Rotary.

Rotary is not just something I admire as a local MP who recognises its work as benefiting my own community as well as people around the world through programs like polio eradication or cleft palate correction through Interplast. Rotary was what pushed me fast down a path of seeing that individuals can change many things in the world and that groups of individuals can make an even bigger difference. I first got involved with Rotary as a 14-year-old when Strathfield Rotary hosted debating competitions between local public high schools. This was the 1970s. I learnt a lot as a representative of Strathfield Girls High School and I also got to see my dad's involvement as a Rotarian, including as president, treasurer—the fate of every accountant in Rotary!—and district treasurer. I helped establish an Interact club and later a Rotaract club.

Then Rotary decided that I should go to RYLA, the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards camp, one of those pivotal experiences. It was my first visit to Springwood, which is now my own electorate, at Blue Gum Lodge. I still remember the people I met and the different perspectives I got on leadership.

Then I was a Rotary exchange student, one of Rotary's most challenging but transformational programs. It's one of the reasons I'm here today. Rotary sent me to Mexico. This was 1981. Now, I didn't know what I was getting into, nor did the other Aussies heading across with me, and there would have been about 10 of us. I've kept in touch with many of them, and to a person we know that the year living with generous Mexican families, making friends at school, travelling across the country and learning Spanish completely changed us—changed us profoundly. I shared the experience with people like former journalist Virginia Haussegger AM; technology entrepreneur and inventor Dr Steven Frisken, who won the 2018 Prime Minister's Prize for Innovation; TAFE policy expert James Worner; and education researcher Dr Alison Reedy. I am clearly the underachiever of the group! No doubt they would all have achieved great things no matter what, but the gift Rotary gave us was immeasurable, as it was for Elloyse Saw, now doing her PhD, around carers of people with mental illness, in Newcastle. Her year in Brazil, more than a decade ago, shaped her life, and it was thanks to Springwood Rotary club, of which my father is still a member and I'm now an honorary member.

My parents were very proud to host Rotary exchange students from South Africa and Brazil, and I've been proud to host students from Brazil and Germany. All those students, now adults with their own careers, say that the Australian experience with Rotary was life-changing. That's why we really need to mark this hundred years. It isn't just the sausage sizzles that they do in our community—although is there a weekend without a Rotary sausage sizzle? The last year has been tough without them. I want to give a shout-out to all the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains clubs, who've celebrated the hundred years in their own ways. But the big red Rotary bus—a Fantastic Aussie Tours bus decked out in Rotary signage and supported by the Rotary E-Club of Greater Sydney, of which some of my locals are members—was a common theme throughout my electorate.

Each club is different but they're all making a difference: Central Blue Mountains Rotary, where I see a strong focus on mental health, especially around bushfires; Upper Blue Mountains Sunrise Rotary, raising money for so many local causes, including homelessness; Rotary Lower Blue Mountains, who have run the local Glenbrook markets for nearly two decades, an enormous effort on their part; Rotary Club of Katoomba, who continue to strongly support youth exchange; Rotary Club of Springwood and their Music Amongst the Autumn Leaves, which brings together mountains schools' talented musicians; and Rotary Club of Blackheath, with members working on bushfire recovery, in particular following the last terrible bushfires. And then there are the Hawke