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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 29 ..

MS MacDONALD (continuing):

After deciding that I did not want to be a teacher or a social worker, I ended up working in the union movement, first for the New South Wales Professional Officers Association and then for the Australian Services Union. I enjoyed my time at the POA and, as well as teaching me about representation of members, it showed me that industrial equity and advocacy are needed in white-collar management areas as much as any blue-collar worker will ever need them. I would like to thank Athol Cairn, Terry Hannan and Rosslyn Small for all that they taught me while I was at the POA.

It was my job with the ASU that brought me to Canberra, but it was a choice that I made gladly and have never regretted. In my five years working for the ASU, I met some truly wonderful people, among both the union members and the managers with whom I worked. I would like to thank Christine Tutty, who is here today in the gallery, for taking me under her wing when I first arrived and throughout the job. I am glad that she is here today to hear this speech and to see Labor in government.

Running in any election is hard work, and elections are never won by one person alone. This is not the first election in which I have been involved, but it is the first one in which I have been the candidate-not counting the university elections. There are many people who helped me to get to this point. My thanks first go to the people of Brindabella for putting their faith in me. My election is a responsibility that I do not take lightly, and I hope to represent you well in the next three years.

I would also like to give a huge vote of thanks to Michael Kerrisk for running an extremely professional and focused election campaign. The ACT branch of the Labor Party has come a long way forward since the 1998 election.

As I have already said, there were many people who have contributed to the campaign, but there are a few people whom I particularly want to thank. I wish to thank Annette Ellis, member of the House of Representatives, for her support during the campaign and since; Steve Whan and Tom Mavec, who are also in the gallery, for acting as sounding boards and for providing continuing support throughout the campaign; and Peter Jean, my campaign manager, for listening calmly to my rantings at various times. I also want to thank Kel Watt for his support and advice, and I am glad to have him on board to work in the office now.

I would like to thank particularly the former Hon. Johno Johnson. Now that Johno has retired from the New South Wales Legislative Council, he refuses to keep the title. Besides which, you always had to refer to him as Johno anyway, otherwise you got into huge trouble.

Johno was kind enough to come to Canberra for a fundraising dinner for me, in honour of his retirement from parliament. For those of you who don't know Johno, he has always been a mentor to young people of all political persuasions, but particularly to young Labor Party supporters. He is also renowned throughout the party for having made the words "raffle" and "ALP" synonymous. Upon his retirement from the upper house, there were 27 pages of tribute speeches made to him from all sides of the house.

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