Page 6025 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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us a remarkable team, and I have worked with a lot of teams over the years in the Army.
To Alistair Coe, I think that your ground game, your work that you do in your electorate, your understanding of local issues is unparalleled. You were probably expected to struggle when Jon Stanhope was put up as your adversary, and it was the opposite. So well done, Al. I think what you do is remarkable.
Steve has had to leave because he has an appointment, and he asked me to pass on his thanks to all of the staff, but Steve is someone who has got an amazing ability with the meet and greet and is a very genuine individual. He is not a grandstander and he is not someone who chases the limelight, but his work with disability groups and his pastoral work, as he calls it, is outstanding.
Vicki Dunne, her knowledge, her work that she does in this chamber—I rattled off a few yesterday—about Bimberi, the Murray-Darling Basin, liquor licensing, childcare, sentencing, care and protection, and the leadership she has shown on so many issues for this Assembly and for this territory, and the changes that has effected have been quite remarkable.
To Brendan, how you stay so enthusiastic and so optimistic after so many years in this place and also up on the hill I think is a credit to you. Your knowledge, your understanding of the history of this place, your loyalty to your leader and to your party is unparalleled.
Of course, it does not happen without a leader and Zed, thank you for your leadership of this party. All of us desperately want to see a Liberal government, and that is not going to happen without strong leadership and without people in the Liberal Party in the broader community who say, “We want this man as Chief Minister,” and I know that all of us want to see you as Chief Minister, and I wish you every success in doing that, and that is what we all want to see.
To the staff of the Assembly, of course we only look good whenever we do because of the staff that we have working for us and we have pooled many of our staff so they are not Zed’s staff, they are not Jeremy’s staff, they are not Brendan’s staff. We work as a team for Steve, for Merlin, for Ian, for Hannah, for Emily, for Juliet, for everybody, for Keith, for Ian, in that team that works so hard for all of us, I really do appreciate it and we are as successful as we are because of that.
To the Assembly staff, much has been said. I echo all of that. I congratulate Kas and wish him well in his holiday to China. I know he would rather go to Italy but sometimes we have to do what our wives tell us. I wish you all the best.
To the people of Molonglo, I am thankful every day for the honour it is to represent you. And obviously to my family, to Fleur, to Robbie and to Will, it is a sometimes challenging job that takes us away from home and I am very lucky to have the beautiful family that I have. To all of you, merry Christmas and a happy new year. I wish you all the best for a safe and happy Christmas.
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