Page 2306 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
person—many of us have been arrested and many of us have been in a lot of protests and bailed friends out of jail. You bring this certain mongrel to it, and I think that is always understood by everybody else. You will forgive us sometimes for the way we conduct ourselves because it is how we were trained.
It is a privilege to have this role. It is great to be able to come here and try to get things done for the community, try to get things done for the party members and the people who voted for us. That is also very challenging because sometimes there is so much expectation that comes with being here on behalf of those communities. That in itself can be a very challenging thing. It is something that I am very grateful to do. That is why I put my hand up to do it again. I hope to see many of you back here next term as we continue to bring to this place our vision for this city that we all call home. I think that, to a person, we all think it is a great city; we just have some slightly different views on what is great about it.
I want to use this moment as it is the one chance we get each term to say thank you. I do have a bit of a list. I would like to thank the staff of the Legislative Assembly. As a former Speaker, I have some insight into the real machinations that go on behind the scenes. Between your professionalism and your friendliness, you make this place a great place to work.
With respect to the directorates, I have been fortunate this term to hold the same portfolios right through the term, so you actually get to know people quite well. The tremendous support they provide to us, the feedback they give, the research and the hard work they put in so that the minister can come out and represent things, are things I am always really grateful for. It is hard to work out how to say it to them because they are trying to maintain a professional distance as public servants, but I am always very grateful to them.
I would like to acknowledge my ministerial colleagues, the members of the Labor Party, and particularly the Chief Minister and his staff. We have this relationship that a lot of people do not understand. I thought about it. I thought, “Should I describe it as an arranged marriage?” I have now! I think it is kind of accurate because you sometimes think, “I’m not really sure about this,” but actually we manage to make it work very well. I think we have found a way to operate together that is effective. We push each other and sometimes it is uncomfortable, but mostly I think we have done a good job for Canberra. I thank you for that partnership that I think has delivered for us.
With respect to the DLOs, it is an interesting role, being a DLO. You are in the public service but you sit in the minister’s office. They do a great job. I have had a bit of a run in this term. I say to Sam, Morgan, Elizabeth, Vanessa and Andrew from JACS; Karen, Cathy, Jon, Chadia, Chris, Alex and Angeline from Health, Kim and Karley over at EPSDD, and Gez and Kim over at Access, you have all been terrific and have really helped us to do our jobs as well as possible.
I spoke before at some length about Caroline, and I do not intend to repeat any of that. It is perhaps better that I do not. I say to Caroline and her staff that it has been great. As we said earlier, Caroline, we will miss you. I particularly thank you and your team. You have been a lot of fun to work with.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video