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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (25 February) . . Page.. 353 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

In 1987 Norm was transferred to the ACT Administration as acting chief executive of ACT TAFE. He led ACT TAFE's transition from three colleges to a single statutory institution, ultimately to be named the Canberra Institute of Technology, or the CIT, as we know it today. Norm spent almost a decade of his life dedicated to furthering the aims of the CIT. He was firmly committed to enabling the institute to provide excellence in the design and delivery of technical and further education in the ACT. He expanded the very horizons of ACT TAFE. He promoted his vision for TAFE and his enthusiasm for technical and further education throughout the ACT TAFE and industry community. Some 200,000 students have benefited from this vision, dedication and enthusiasm. I know that Norm took pleasure from the successes of the CIT and CIT Solutions, largely because of the respect and recognition of these successes in the community. He was also gratified by the way the CIT's students association, CITSA, has become the leading students association in Australia. His support of it was reciprocated by its support of the TAFE system and of Norm.

Norm's skills as a fine bureaucrat, as well as his legacy to Australian vocational education and training nationally and internationally, will ensure that he is not forgotten. He will be remembered with respect, gratitude and affection by all who have been touched by his work or by his engaging personality. There are many things about Norm Fisher that I personally will remember, both from his time working to me as Minister and also from my time as a part-time teacher at the CIT. Mr Speaker, Norm Fisher's death so soon after retirement from public life is indeed a tragedy. There will be very many who will miss him and who will miss the wise advice he so willingly tendered.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, Norman Fisher's career provides a model for public servants, especially in these times when their role is being redefined. I worked with him for 31/2 years, as Minister to senior bureaucrat, and respected his professionalism and his dedication. That the Minister also commends these qualities is further support of his outstanding work. The public good, expressed through service to the government of the day by delivering quality outcomes for his students and the ACT, was his consistent aim, successfully achieved. Norman Fisher was utterly devoted to that work. I know that his colleagues urged him to slow down, as did his family; but his passion for his work in the ACT was too great. He deserved, and his family deserved, a long and energetic retirement, or rather a new career; but that reward did not come. But Norman's reward, and his family's, comes in the knowledge and the deep satisfaction in the pride of his achievements.

I first met him when I worked for the Federal Minister for Education and he was a valued and respected deputy secretary. But my close knowledge of his work came when I was Minister and I saw how he shaped, indeed reshaped, TAFE-level education in the ACT. His unceasing drive was directed towards improving the standard of the now Canberra Institute of Technology, in raising the quality of its students and in providing a resource that is essential for the economic and social development of the ACT and district.

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