Member for Morialta, Staff

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta) (15:29): I wish to take this opportunity to thank the staff who have helped me throughout my time as the member for Morialta and recognise their efforts and achievements. Our electorate office opened after the March 2010 election, with Lyn Byrne and Reuben Bolaffi helping me get set-up, but they had jobs to go to and could not stay. Our first team therefore included the administrative efficiency genius Jenny Richardson and lifelong local CFS volunteer firefighter and general hero Scott Kennedy. They were joined a little later by the wonderful Raelene Zanetti.

In our first summit, we were very fortunate to have the dux of Norwood Morialta High School Gia-Yen Luong join our team. Unfortunately, she left us at the end of that summer, choosing instead to accept the lure of full scholarships in the eastern top universities and then a Rhodes Scholarship too. Happily, Gia-Yen returned to Adelaide recently with her awards, her degrees and her family as the first South Australian manager for the Teach For Australia program.

Our first trainee, Andrew Smolilo, is now in Poland and I hope that his time with us will be helpful should he be elected to serve his community in the years ahead in Warsaw. We had some wonderful trainees over the years and I am very pleased a good number of them have stayed in touch and that they are doing well. They included Bonnie Sleeman, Kahlia Aunger, Ibrahim Musiliza, Patricia Foresto, Leah Markwick and Sarah Margitich. There was Bailey Park, who went on to join staff, eventually as office manager and then when I became deputy leader as my senior adviser—senior adviser also known as office manager, of course, in opposition. There was Karen Dematera, Grace Moriarty, Ernestine Perkins and Caitlin Organ, who is now providing outstanding service in this building in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.

The traineeship program has been a good one, providing opportunities for many young South Australians to indeed get straight into the workforce after school, getting paid while they gain a qualification. Some have done other studies and were looking for a new path as well. All of my trainees added value in our office and added significant value in our community, and with significant workforce shortages around our state right now I understand the program is in a bit of a lull, but I hope it will continue to be available in the future.

Permanent staff grew and retired and made life choices, and sometimes life just moves on. Since the early team of the first couple of years, other regular staff who came in and helped serve our community in different ways included: Helen Dwyer, Sarah Hennessy, Sam Mitchell, Priya Pavri, Almira De Vera and her sister Abigail De Vera, Delia Obst, Louise Mathwin, Luke Vagenas, Nadine Rasheed, Gurtej Sohal, Brad Warner and George Belperio. Some stayed for a season, a summer or a maternity leave and some for several years. Some were full time and some were students who worked one or two days a week while completing their degrees. I am grateful to all of them for their unique skills and personalities, for the assistance they gave me and the service they offered our constituents.

A number of other very good people also helped us with casual relief projects and volunteer work. I cannot possibly name them all so instead I ask their forgiveness if I have inadvertently missed them, although I do still have seven days left in which to make it up to you. I hope those staff each found their time to be a positive one and an opportunity to learn new skills and make a contribution. They helped vulnerable people and contributed to policy development and advocacy for our area.

As a minister in the Marshall government a new team supported those endeavours and I am grateful to them. They served our children and young people, perhaps never more than during the unprecedented complexity and disruption of COVID. We had a big reform agenda, we got a lot done and had much to be proud of.

To the public servants who worked in the previous minister's office and stayed for a little while, I extend my thanks to Erin O'Brien, Paj Sandhu and Leah Christopoulos, and also to the public servants who joined our team and served for a significant time, including Lucy Midwinder, the best office manager ever to serve in government, and her excellent team including Elizabeth Virgara, Andy Martin, Mejlin Skrzypiec, Karen Dematera, Danielle Said, Amber Stone and Hayley Brewer.

My ministerial office advisers were led by Cheryl Bauer and then by Bec Lynas when Cheryl retired as Chief of Staff. It was my privilege to work with both of them as chiefs of staff and I could not have asked for better. I had my senior adviser Garry Costello, who I am sure the current minister will agree knows more about public schools than anyone in South Australia. I had early childhood and education advisers Sarah Hennessy and Louise Mathwin, who always challenged me to think outside the square and consider every perspective in service of our children and young people.

As to my TAFE and higher education advisers, there were the outstanding Hannah Treloar and then Dr Samuel Murison, deep thinkers with oceans of knowledge about their portfolio areas as well as so much more. There were my media advisers Todd Clappis and Elise Baker, terrific people who squeezed every ounce of potential out of me, as well as Steve Bley and most recently Derek Rust, outstanding public servants who maximised my productivity as minister and deputy leader. When I was deputy opposition leader, Derek became part of our family and our kids would be sending him Christmas cards. I will talk more about my current team next week, but it goes without saying that we would be nothing without our office staff and I am so grateful. The mistakes were mine, the achievements were only available to be done with their support.