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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3895 ..

Valedictory

MS TUCKER (11.46): I would like to thank everyone who supports us here. I will list them. I would like to thank Parliamentary Counsel. I know that they work under extreme pressure on occasions, and stay calm most of the time. I thank Hansard, the attendants, the people in the library, the committee support staff of course, and Judith Henderson in particular. I have worked with her for 61/2 years now. She has been a fantastic support and a very competent secretary always, as well as having a great sense of humour, which is always an asset.

The Clerk's office is always very professional, kind and supportive. I really appreciate the work of the Education Office, and I like to support them when they are showing people the Assembly, particularly the young people. The Corporate Services people, once again, are also always helpful and professional. The public servants we have contact with are also very important. The staff of all members in this place are almost always courteous and helpful, but we are all under strain on occasions. The people I work with, the Greens, as other members have said, are very important to the work I do here. I am basically the public face of the work of Roland, Gordon and Allison. They work extremely hard and always with incredible good humour, and I really appreciate that.

I would also like to acknowledge the community, Mr Moore, and you can take that to mean whatever you like. I have made some very special friendships and partnerships if you like with people in the community who have informed my work and enriched my life. One thing I would say about doing this work is that you do get the opportunity to meet really amazing people in the community who you otherwise would not have the opportunity to meet. I think people who get to the point where they are prepared to be engaged or to talk to a representative of the Assembly are people who either have a very special and devastating story or they have courage or they are prepared to show leadership. I think most people in a community live their own life, and it is quite a narrow experience in lots of ways, but when you work here you see all the layers.

I guess that is why, when we had the debate last week on the referendum and we had been thinking about what democracy is and what representative democracy is, I was reflecting on the fact that if you make a decision based on your own personal experience, which is what most people only have, it can be quite a different decision from the one you would make if you are exposed to what we are exposed to here, and that is the layers that exist in our community. I do not know if it is the same for people in all parliaments, because other parliaments are much larger and maybe people can remain more isolated, but in this parliament it is pretty hard to do that. I think we all do have that opportunity.

I also want to thank John Tucker. He is always supportive and has a fantastic sense of humour, which gets me through. I want to wish good luck to Michael who has said he will not be coming back. I hope you have a good time with whatever you do.

I wish everybody luck, although I really do not want to see you all here. I want to see women here, so I am sorry guys, some of you have got to go. I will finish with that, thank you.

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