Page 3673 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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secretary, Ms Grace Concannon, for their great contribution over the four years. A special thanks to Ms Kate Harkins for her superb contribution since May this year.
To all our parliamentary colleagues in government and on the crossbench, the Assembly secretariat, Tom and, Max and all the staff—Rick and Ray, the attendants Rod, Andrew, Dick, Peter and Peter, Dennis, Paul, Lainie, Sam—I have enjoyed working with all of you. Finally, to my family—Maureen, Adam, Amy, Nettie, Ed, Isabella, Noah, Kasia and Andrew—thank you for your support, love and understanding.
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (7.24): Mr Speaker. I will speak briefly to mark this last day of our sitting for the Assembly. In doing so, I recognise those whom I worked with in this place all year round for the last number of years. I thank my colleagues, especially, of course, the Chief Minister for all her support, and each of my other terrific Labor colleagues who have always been there for me. Farewell to Johnno, of course; I will miss you. I also add my best wishes to Jon and Robyn in their new venture.
I thank my current staff: Mirinie, or Charles as most of you know him as and who has had a new addition to his family since he has been working for me; Jamie, who came home this week from hospital; Jack, my retirement village guru; Murielle; Janet; and Guy. I thank my former staff this term: Andrew, Frank and Monica, who I hope is still doing well and recovering from her bad car accident.
Of course I would like to thank everyone who keeps this place going and provides us with such valuable support and advice, particularly the Clerk and his team. He is always there for me to help me work through some of the difficult questions, as are the rest of his office. I thank corporate, the education office, the Library, Hansard and those tireless workers in the Committee Office, particularly those I have had most to do with: my own secretary, Veronica, and also Sam and Andrew. Of course, I thank the attendants who are definitely our mainstay. Dick always wants to know how my horse is going. I am afraid it has not come up with much for him of late, but it did come third last run, so that was not too bad. I hope he had some money on her. I do not think it paid very much actually, but never mind. I thank Rick, who is always there for us as well. I am so glad I managed to find out that Meredith had a shelf, because now I have a shelf, too, in my kitchen. I recommend a shelf; it is very good. A number of people have served us in the IT area over the time. Being quite an IT luddite I really do need them. To other members in this place, sometimes we agree and sometimes we do not, but I hope I have treated you all with respect for the last few years.
My deep thanks go to my community—the people of Ginninderra that trust me with their concerns and issues, that share some of their most personal experiences with me and trust me to work with them to make a difference. My thanks also go to the many community, business and arts organisations. I thank my Landcare groups that I belong to and my CFU. Thanks to all the different directorate staff, too, who are on the receiving end of my constant stream of representations on behalf of my constituents, the people I am here to serve. I give my heartfelt thanks to my volunteers who have always been there and are so supportive.
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