Page 3668 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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Clerk, thank you for all that you and your staff do through the various elements. Here in the chamber it is really important, but beyond the chamber, in the committees, in the Library, in the recording studio, in Hansard, and to all of the attendants, to the people that keep the building going, thank you very much on behalf of us all.
To my colleagues in the Liberal Party here in the Assembly, thank you very much—Zed for your leadership; it has been great. I have been here for 14 years now and I have never seen the Liberal Party look as good. The team is tight, the effort is good and it particularly comes down to the approach under Zed’s leadership of putting everything together and pooling. We do work as a team. To be a team, you have got to be the team.
So to Ian, Hannah, Emily, Maria, Keith, Merlin, Juliette, Kate, Ruth, Sue, Albert, Jess, Bridgette, Clinton, George, Lyle, Haidee and Tim, who are all my staff courtesy of our arrangements, it is nice to have so much staff at my disposal. The good thing is with all of those staff members—and I hope I got them all—there is so much experience, so much generosity of time and spirit and so much dedication to the purpose that it is great to work with you, to be part of this team, along with you, Zed, Jeremy, Vicki, Steve and Alastair. It is a great experience and it really does make it worth while coming to work every single day.
To the staff of the division, Tio, Danielle, Sarwat, Katie, Chris, Steve and all the volunteers, thank you for all you do. I often say to people, “If you want to make a difference, join a political party.” My preference would be the Liberals, but really you need good people in good parties. The staff that we have and the way the division is running is just sensational. To my own branches, the southern electorate branch and the Long Gully branch, thank you to all those people in those areas for the work that they do.
To my office in particular, to Amy, who was a holdover from the last election to the start of this term, and to Haidee, thank you very much, and particularly to Tim McGhie. A lot of people would not know it but Tim was in the House of Assembly in the 1970s. He has lots of experience and oddly enough one of his firm memories is of debates on the CTP in the late 1970s, when the insurance company of the day actually threatened to leave the territory. If you want to know the history of CTP, go see Tim McGhie. He is a great soul, he is a great spirit and he is very much dedicated to making Canberra a better place, and that helps me do my job.
To all in the ACT community, particularly the interest groups—again we do not always agree with you eye to eye but I do like the way Canberrans stand up for each other and advocate, particularly those in the business groups that I deal with—thank you for all your support in wanting to make Canberra a better place. To the people of Brindabella who put me in this job, and so far have kept me here, 56 days, I hope I have done enough to get through the job interview. It is great to serve you and I love being down in the valley. I love the bits of the Woden Valley too that fall within Brindabella. People often think we forget them, but we do not. To the broader Canberra community, thank you.
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