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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 5054 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

ACT suffer alone, either not aware of or not confident enough to approach the association. They want to reach these people in particular. They want to continue to help health workers have access to the latest and emerging information about epilepsy.

Mr Speaker, the Epilepsy Association is not alone in its struggles and ambitions. There are dozens of community groups like them. But the challenges are significant and, if they are successful, the result will be great changes for the better. I wish them all the very best in their endeavours and ask members to extend to them the courtesy of a small amount of time when they call to plead their case.

Mr Terry Hannan

MS MacDONALD (5.40): Mr Speaker, I rise today to speak on a couple of matters. Firstly I also would like to extend my congratulations to Volunteering ACT for having reached 10 years. I think they do a sterling job in our community. I congratulate Mary Porter, Ian De Landelles and all the staff and volunteers for the work they do at Volunteering ACT.

I primarily want to speak about an old friend of mine, Terry Hannan. Terry is going to be very annoyed with me now that I have called him an "old friend"because, of course, he does not believe he is old. However, I congratulate my very good friend Terry for having received the Brian Miller Lifetime Safety Achievement Award. The inaugural award, which was known as the New South Wales Workplace Safety Council's Lifetime Achievement Award and commenced last year, has been renamed in honour of CFMEU occupational health and safety coordinator Brian Miller, who unfortunately died earlier this year. I will read the following about Brian:

CFMEU Safety Coordinator Brian Miller was awarded the inaugural award last year at the first ever safety conference to be hosted by the NSW Labor Council. Brian's name is synonymous with safety and stories about his lifetime of campaigning on behalf of workers is the stuff from which legends are made.

Born in Kensington, Sydney, Brian first started working on building sites in the 1950s, at a time some of the first multi-storey projects, including the AMP and MLC buildings and the Sydney Opera House, were being built.

It was often a case of new techniques, new dangers to address and combined with the bad attitude towards safety held by many employers, Brian saw first hand the devastating effects of poor OHS standards at work.

Coming to prominence in the 1960s, Brian was an active union member who could always be relied upon to come out fighting on behalf of his fellow workers. Brian's driving concern was that men and women throughout Australia should not die while working to feed their families. He was also a strong support to those who did lose loved ones on the job.

In 1973 he became a full-time BWIU organiser. He helped establish the first workers' safety committee, organised a safety blitz in the Liverpool area-and so his career as a tireless watchdog of worker safety was launched.

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