Thousands of teenagers flock to the Gold Coast for annual schoolies celebrations

Schoolies has kicked off on the Gold Coast with 20-thousand high school leavers celebrating this year’s major milestone.

Transcript

00:00Paramedics have praised the conduct and behaviour of schoolies, saying of that 20,000 you mentioned

00:07only 16 needed to be assessed by paramedics, mostly for alcohol-related issues, and that's

00:13a message that police have widely mirrored.

00:15There were no major incidents to report last night.

00:19That sort of behaviour trend tracks and matches what we've seen in recent years.

00:24For instance, last year there were 17 arrests at schoolies.

00:27That's compared to 500 about 15 years ago, so big changes at schoolies on the Gold Coast.

00:34And speaking of big changes, for a first this year, pill testing has been made available

00:38to schoolies.

00:40That's an initiative of the former Labor government, who was voted out of office last month.

00:44The new LNP government says that they won't be continuing pill testing at next year's

00:49schoolie celebrations, over concerns that it sends the wrong message about drug use.

00:53Nonetheless, police say at this year's event they won't be patrolling the area immediately

00:58around the pill testing site, so that they don't discourage any schoolies from getting

01:02their drugs checked.

01:04But outside of the politics and the news angle of it all, all the schoolies we spoke to last

01:10night, you just get a real sense of sheer enjoyment and happiness.

01:14Slugging away at the desk, it gets a bit hard, you know, drilling sometimes, but yeah, to

01:19come out and have a good time with the boys, nah, really good, really good.

01:22I appreciate the stuff that the Red Fox do and what they've put on for us as well.

01:25I love it, I'm having so much fun, it's so fun.

01:28Really good, the beach party's really fun, yeah.

01:32I met someone from Canberra in the mosh pit, I was like, what?

01:36Yeah, where are you guys based now?

01:38Yes!

01:39I was like, wait, you're from Canberra?

01:41I was like, no way!

01:44I can't walk!

01:50Yeah, so you can tell the mood's pretty positive here on the Gold Coast, so day one is down,

01:54there's a full week left, and hopefully the good results we've seen and the good atmosphere,

01:59the good mood, continues for the rest of the week.