Page 584 - Week 02 - Thursday, 18 February 2016
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Visitor
MADAM SPEAKER: Before I call Mr Rattenbury, I acknowledge the presence in the gallery of former member of the Legislative Assembly Ms Karin McDonald. Welcome back to the Assembly.
Valedictory
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo): I seek leave to make a brief statement.
Leave granted.
MR RATTENBURY: Madam Speaker, on behalf of both myself and the ACT Greens, I wish to thank Ms Porter for her hard work and dedication here in the Assembly over the past three terms. My interactions with Ms Porter have been varied, working together on the Speaker’s panel last term and on some committees along the way, but I felt I could best reflect on Ms Porter’s career by acknowledging her interest in a number of matters that she has dedicated herself to in her time in this place.
The first matter I thought I would touch on is animal welfare, because Mary has taken a great interest in animal welfare issues and worked with the ACT government to raise and support animal welfare issues, especially those of domestic animals. She took a great interest in Domestic Animal Services, the great work the volunteers at ACT Rescue and Foster do and new regulations to improve the breeding and sale of domestic animals.
The second area is retirement villages, which has been spoken about already. This is an area that Mary can be especially proud of, particularly her work with retirement village groups across the city to bring about the draft legislation and to improve the regulation around retirement villages in the ACT, an area of real policy importance as our community ages and more people live that sort of a lifestyle.
The legislation was consulted on widely and was passed in the last Assembly. It is now a piece of legislation that I look after in my justice portfolio. As we go through a review a couple of years down the track to make sure that the legislation is delivering as we hoped I know that Mary’s interest in that legislation has continued. She has been engaging in that consultation process again as we tweak that legislation to make sure it is delivering what we set out for it to do.
Another area has been her work on end-of-life issues, which we discussed in this place yesterday. The ACT, as Mary noted yesterday, has a good palliative care system, but there are still quite a few things that can be improved, such as bedding down clearer and more portable and enforceable advance care directive schemes, continuing to advocate for the repeal of the federal legislation that prevents the ACT from making our own legislation on euthanasia issues, and continuing to improve palliative care.
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