Page 3118 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 20 August 2019
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over 150 visits to young people in the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre, and over 500 visits to children and young people in residential out of home care. She would have made as many, if not more, visits to inmates at the Alexander Maconochie Centre. Frankly, it would be impossible to count the number of phone calls she received as an official visitor during this period.
Ms Whetnall fulfilled her role as an official visitor with integrity, compassion, impartiality and objectivity. She understood the importance of being there for children and young people, of being someone they could easily approach, of being someone they could talk to, and, of course, of being someone they could trust. She helped them to navigate the world they were in, provided them with a voice and helped them to receive and understand the answers to concerns they raised.
Ms Whetnall’s love for her role was evident to all who encountered her. She genuinely cared for those on whose behalf she advocated. She encouraged children and young people to strive to be their best, to look towards the future with positivity and hope, and to make choices that would lead them to a successful future. She was guided by a commitment to the principles of inclusion and self-determination, and had a philosophy of respect, diversity and equal opportunity. This commitment was evident through the relationships she built with the children and young people in out of home care and at Bimberi.
It was with much sadness that Ms Whetnall resigned from the position of official visitor in April 2019 due to her ill health. I know I speak not only for myself and all my colleagues in the ACT government but for the children and young people for whom she advocated and for the ACT government staff with whom she engaged by acknowledging today the important role she played in improving the lives of children and young people, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I have no doubt she will be remembered with fondness and that she will be greatly missed.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (10.06): I rise today to express the opposition’s condolences at the passing of Tracey Whetnall, the first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander official visitor in the ACT for prisons and youth detention, and our longest-serving official visitor.
Ms Whetnall was born on 30 June 1963 in Sydney. She was one of six siblings born to a Scottish father and an Aboriginal mother. She spent much of her childhood swimming down at the coast or watching the Rabbitohs at Redfern Oval. Although she moved to Canberra in 1998, she would never let go of her first love, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. She was an ardent supporter throughout her life, and this passion was passed down to her children and grandchildren.
By all accounts, Ms Whetnall was an exemplary person—engaging, resilient and always ready to lend a hand. A public service traineeship led her into Defence and the Army Reserve, where she worked temporarily as a cook. She said of her time there:
I’d always imagined myself as a chef on a cruise ship or something but all that discipline was too much for me, spit polishing your boots.
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