Page 2716 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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Ms Georges has also gained wide respect for the active role she has played in the Justice and Community Safety Directorate’s Reconciliation Action Plan and for her continued and committed support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues.
From the many years I have worked with Sandra Georges, I can attest unequivocally to those qualities. Sandra Georges’ advice has always been professional and impartial. Her attention to detail has been exemplary. She has a consummate ability to understand and action legislative instructions quickly, efficiently and effectively.
To say that it has been a pleasure to work with Sandra Georges over the years is a sad understatement of fact. It is with gratitude and humility that I acknowledge Sandra Georges’ work in our community and for the ACT Legislative Assembly. I wish her well as she leaves an inspiring and much-fulfilled career to take up retirement which, I am sure, will just be the opening of another opportunity for her to turn her attention to some of the things that she no doubt has been putting aside for many years.
In paying tribute to Sandra Georges on her retirement, I want to take the opportunity to again pay tribute to the work more generally of the Parliamentary Counsel. We have an exemplary legislation register—the best in the country, in my view—and it is testament to the ongoing work of the Parliamentary Counsel. I extend Sandra Georges best wishes on her retirement and I pass on my thanks to her for her service and to the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office more generally for their service to the Australian Capital Territory.
Valedictory
MS BURCH (Brindabella) (10.08): I rise to say a few words as we come to the end of this Assembly. Firstly, I would like to say thank you to all the Assembly staff for your patience in sitting late into tonight—and tomorrow night will be later. To all the Assembly staff, to the committee staff and to everybody who keeps this place functioning, I want to thank you. You are forever patient, forever polite and forever supportive. I am sure everyone in this chamber thanks you for that.
I want to thank my staff—staff who are no longer with me: Phil, Maria, Victor, Mark and Brenton, to name a few; and the staff who still share my office: Melinda, Emma, Thomas and Monique—for their friendship, their loyalty, their dedication and their sense of humour.
Every office has a particular character, and there is a disrespect for plain English that comes in sometimes in my office. I was gifted with a collection of what they referred to as Joy-isms but I think is a collective office-ism. It includes things like “gurgling”, “self-pruning”, “wobbling like a dingbat”, “slapper brigade”, “flippy-flappy”, and “monumentous”, to name a few. I want to add to that list tonight: “woo-hoo-diddly-do”. These are words that are just created by people after a hard day, a long day, a fun day. There is almost a Burch office dictionary now being developed. I want to thank my staff for their patience and for that.
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