Page 3671 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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and make us look like we know what we are doing. Sometimes that is pretty hard. A particular thanks to Janice, who was above and beyond today.
To my Assembly colleagues and our staff, it has been an honour and a privilege to work with you this past year. I thank our staff like Adam, who has moved on; Hannah, who keeps us on the ball; Steve and Ian; and my own personal staff, including Clinton. I would like to reflect on the fact that this time four years ago Bill Stefaniak said in this place when he was talking about Clinton that it would be a wise person who took up Clinton as a staff member. I have received great benefit and great support and friendship from Clinton over the past four years. I thank Amanda and Belinda and George. George we thank particularly because he bears the brunt of all of our George of the Jungle jokes: George, just lucky, I guess.
To my family—Lyle and Olivia and Tom and Julia and Bella and Connor—I give my particular thanks. I want to pay particular tribute to my mum and dad. Despite their Labor backgrounds, they are very proud of the fact that they have a member of parliament in their daughter. I want to share a small anecdote, because members would know that my mother is gravely ill at the moment. The last time I visited her for her 92nd birthday she said, “Haven’t you got an election coming up fairly soon?” I said, “Yes, mum; it’s in October,” and she said, “Why are you here and not at home electioneering?”
To the people of Ginninderra—from Aranda to Hall, from Weetangera to Nicholls—I thank you for your confidence in me at three elections. I am looking forward to the service that I hope I may give to the residents of Palmerston and Crace if I have the honour of returning in the Eighth Assembly.
I work with numerous community groups, but some require particular acknowledgement here today—the ACT Bar Association and the ACT Law Society, the judges and the magistrates on the bench, the foster parents and carers, grandparents and kinship carers, ACTCOSS, and the people at organisations like Communities@Work and Marymead. I need to thank you all for contributing to our thinking and my thinking on the serious issues that confront us.
In the rural and conservation sector I thank the Rural Landholders Association, the Conservation Council and the Limestone Plains Group. To the area I see as a bonus in the areas of responsibility I have,
I thank organisations like the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, the Childers Group, the Street Theatre, the Cultural Facilities Corporation ably led by Harriett Elvin, MusicACT, Free Rain Theatre Company, Canberra Repertory Society, M16 Artspace, Megalo and many other arts organisations that make this city great. I thank ArtSound, which supports all those arts organisations and tells their stories. I thank people like those involved in Neighbourhood Watch in suburbs across my electorate and elsewhere who make a great contribution to our city.
I want to pay special tribute to the men and women of the Canberra Liberals: my own branch—the NEB—Robert Gunning and his executive, and the staff of the division and the division organisation. It is extraordinarily professional for an amateur
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