Page 2570 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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Valedictory
Belconnen workplace fatality
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Minister for Housing, Community Services and Social Inclusion, Minister for Multicultural and Youth Affairs, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (9.57): I wish to use my adjournment speech tonight to say thank you to the people of Ginninderra who elected me in 2012 to represent their interests and put my community first in my work here in the ACT government. I would like to thank all of the people that I have met and worked with to build an even stronger community in Belconnen.
I would like to acknowledge and thank all of the many organisations and stakeholder groups who have contributed their time and expertise to my work as minister, all of the peak bodies, all of the service providers in housing and homelessness work, the women’s sector, community services, the multicultural sector, asylum seeker and refugee support, and youth services. People accessing these services have been willing to have a chat with me whenever I visited their local service groups. Sporting groups—from local clubs through to peak bodies and their leadership team—as well as all of the sportspeople have always been happy to show a drop-in minister all of their fantastic skills. I thank the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members, as well as our fabulous multicultural community.
I would also like to thank ACT government officials from the Community Services Directorate, including the Community Participation Group, as well as Housing ACT, and Active Canberra within the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate.
I would also like to thank all of the Assembly staff and all of the committee secretaries, although I have not worked directly with them since I have been on the frontbench, as well as all of the attendants in this place. Thank you for keeping our glasses full and for having a happy face as we come into the Assembly each day.
I would especially like to thank the cleaners for keeping my office neat and tidy for me and my team. I would also like to make special mention of Rick Hart and thank him for his patience when I have asked him to hang a picture or fix a light in my office. He has been incredibly patient and I will miss his happy and cheery smile in this place.
Finally, I would like to thank and acknowledge my colleagues in the government. I look forward to working with each of you over the coming months as well as the years to come.
Tonight I would like to take the time during my adjournment speech to pay my respects and to offer my sympathies to the man, and his family and friends, who was killed during the catastrophic workplace accident in Belconnen last week. I pay my respects and pass on my sympathies to his workmates, to all of the union members and to anybody else here in the Canberra community who witnessed this event or an injury or death at another ACT worksite. I know there will be many people who have
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