Page 5751 - Week 15 - Thursday, 10 December 2009
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To the Hansard and Communications staff, we would like to say thank you. We know that we mumble sometimes and we ruffle our papers—and apparently I have a bad habit of tapping my pencil on my fingers, which turns up as a drum beat in the Hansard booth, I am told. So to Ray and guys, apologies, but these are things that keep it interesting for you, I am sure. To all the staff in Hansard and Communications: thanks for what you do.
To Corporate Services: the Assembly does not function unless the bills are paid, so to those that take care of us and take care of the Assembly at large, thank you very much.
I give thanks to an area that I think we forget about often, Strategy and Parliamentary Education. It is very important that people know what we do here, and I reflect, Mr Speaker, on your speech and note that you do not fess up to where you were in 1989. But I do remember it as a year of great irony: while the people of eastern Europe were bringing down the Iron Curtain, the people of Canberra were resisting the notion of self-determination. I found it quite intriguing, I have to say, that these momentous events were going on in the world—and people here were not interested or were not as interested in having a say in their own future.
It is incredibly important that people understand that we are a parliament in our own right and the work that we do. Indeed, Mr Coe, Ms Le Couteur and I again fronted a group of young students yesterday. The interest was great, the questions were good and you could just see the enthusiasm in them for their home city, and that is a good thing. So to those in Strategy and Parliamentary Education: well done.
To the chamber support staff: I was just joking outside a minute ago about Rafferty’s rules. Apparently, Rafferty’s rules are alive and well in the Assembly, so to Janice and to all the staff that you work with: thanks for what you do. As Simon said, you are completely unflappable. The blues turn up with the attached notes and the highlighted bits for us, the things we have to do, and we are very grateful, because when you are debating live it just rolls on. Without those aids, who knows where we would end up.
Max, next year is 2010. It is not that far away—it is only 44 years—but it will be worth the wait.
Mr Barr interjecting—
MR SMYTH: I dream and I live the dream every day, Mr Barr. To Tom and all your staff: thanks very much for what you do, for the advice you give. We might not always like it or agree with it, but I think we respect the spirit that it is given in.
To our colleagues, to both the Greens and the Labor Party, to all the members and their staff: we do not always agree; we never will. Life would be somewhat boring and there would be no need for parliaments if we did. But mainly in this place the way that we debate each other is done with a deal of respect. There is a bit of banter occasionally, but at the end of the day many of us have come from places where there was not the level of equality that we have in this—and it is something worth protecting.
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