Parliamentary Procedure

SWIFT, MS CHRISTINE

The PRESIDENT (16:32): I rise to advise members that we are about to lose the services of Ms Christine Swift, who has more than capably served in the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and this parliament for some 27 years. I am sure I speak for us all when I say that we are sad to lose Christine, who has truly been a wonderful asset to this parliament in her assistance in drafting legislation and, more expressly, numerous amendments that are very much part of the work of this chamber.

I know that Christine has had vast experience in drafting some of our most important legislation in areas including domestic violence, equal opportunity, anticorruption, public sector employment, privatisation of electricity bodies, outback communities, liquor licensing, consumer affairs, small business, environment protection, native title, mental health, dangerous substances, livestock and aquaculture.

Christine has also held the role of Commissioner for Legislation Revision and Publication since 2003, which involved the conciliation of legislation and its legislative history. Christine undertook the legislation website project and the XML drafting and publishing system project, of which many have been the beneficiaries, and has been vital in particular to our parliamentary processes. I am sure you will all join me in expressing our disappointment in losing Christine and her services to this parliament as such an experienced and valuable person, and I take this opportunity to wish Christine every success in her future endeavours.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the Status of Women) (16:34): With the leave of the council, I rise to support your comments. I understand Christine Swift has been part of parliamentary counsel since August 1985, and she has certainly left an indelible mark on this parliament and on the South Australian community in terms of the legacy of legislation she has left behind her.

I have been very fortunate enough to have the privilege of working with Christine on a number of pieces of legislation over the years, and I have always enjoyed working with her and been very much impressed with her performance. She always conducts herself in a highly professional way. She is an incredibly competent and very smart woman. She certainly begs no favours in terms of being able to work across all elements of parliament; she is very fair and even-handed in the way she has approached all members of parliament, and the respect afforded to her by all members of parliament.

Christine is one of these people who is certainly not afraid to give frank and fearless advice. As a minister and for me personally, I find this to be a very precious attribute. It is very much a breath of fresh air to be around a highly professional technician who is prepared to tell you what you need to know rather than what they think you might want to hear. As I said, that is a very precious thing indeed and I have valued that fearless and frank advice very much, and I certainly have trusted that advice.

Christine also has an uncanny ability to accommodate a wide range of different concerns and points of view when drafting legislation. She has an outstanding ability in creative problem solving and has been an enormous help in being able to resolve issues. She has often helped reach a point where all parties have been able to agree and then move forward. Without that wonderful ability to resolve those differences, I believe there is a great deal of legislation that would have either been much poorer for it or would simply have never been able to gain the support it needed to pass through this house in particular.

It is interesting to look at some of the legislation that you listed, Mr President. There is the Liquor Licensing Act; small business commissioner act; EO Act, which I had quite a bit to do with; the Public Sector Act; Dog and Cat Management Act; native title; livestock; ICAC—the list is enormous. However, her skills are apparently not just confined to drafting legislation. She has also been responsible for designing a computer system and simplifying work practices within the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. I understand that the IT system she developed has facilitated the process of drafting and consolidating legislation and that those skills are being sought by other jurisdictions at this point, so that will serve her well.

This work has flowed naturally into a further major project, which in 2006 led to the development of the South Australian legislation website. That website has made all South Australian legislation accessible to everybody who wants to avail themselves of it. Christine is a very remarkable woman, she has made an enormous contribution to SA statutes and her skills have been a massive help in providing South Australia with some very sound and good legislation.

It has been my great pleasure to have been able to work personally with Christine, and I know others have enjoyed working with her as well. I, along with others here in this chamber, wish her every success and happiness in all her future pursuits.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (16:38): I rise to support your remarks and thank Christine for her many years of service. In the time I have been a shadow minister we have only very occasionally had a chance to work together, but I have always found her to be very easy to work with and very understanding of perhaps the clumsy way I would ask questions of her; she would put it into very sensible words.

The Hon. G.E. Gago: She even made you look good.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Exactly, and it is a fair job to make me look good, as members would know. I know that former members Robert Lawson and Caroline Schaefer also send their best wishes as Christine is departing, as I have been told, to write the constitution for Nauru. I have visions of a beautiful tropical island with palm trees and pina coladas, so I hope it is like that and not some of the other visions that we have seen in some of the Pacific Islands. I am sure she will have a wonderful time and that the country of Nauru will be better served by having a new constitution. I know that others have a few comments to make but, generally, on behalf of the team, I thank Christine very much for her years of service.

The Hon. S.G. WADE (16:39): I would like to join my remarks with your remarks, Mr President, and those of the two leaders. As shadow attorney-general, I am particularly indebted to parliamentary counsel and I appreciate the opportunity to thank and pay tribute to the work of Christine Swift. Christine has always been diligent and, perhaps more importantly, patient. Her expertise is expansive. When we come into this place we think of parliamentary counsel as parliamentary draftspeople, but it does not take us long to realise that that is merely the tip of the iceberg. They are effectively our personal tutors in law and good legislative practice.

The fact of the matter is that, increasingly, members of parliament are not lawyers in their own right and for us to be given the support to produce good laws for the people of this state we rely on parliamentary counsel to do that job. Parliamentary drafting is far from a technical craft. It is where politics and law meet, and Christine has a great capacity to understand both the depth of the law and the dynamics of politics and to produce workable solutions that meet both needs.

I must admit that I was informed by your comments, Mr President, that Christine was the architect of the legislation.sa.gov.au website. I believe that is one of the most important innovations in the government of South Australia for many years. We cannot expect citizens to obey the law if they cannot find it. The fact that citizens not only have access to the current laws but also have access to bills that are being considered by this parliament, I think, is a great advance. It is so much easier to help people to remain part of the parliamentary process through that site, and I would particularly like to thank Christine for that. Not only will her fingerprints be over our statute books for many years to come but also over our website. Thank you.

The Hon. A. BRESSINGTON (16:41): I also want to joint with your comments, Mr President, and those of other members in this place in congratulating Christine Swift for the service that she has provided. In the 6½ years that I have been in this place, she has had a hand in helping me and my office with numerous amendments to government legislation, most of which have been successful, and I believe that is purely because of the expertise she applies to the drafting of those amendments and the understanding of what the intention is behind those amendments.

As the minister stated, Ms Swift is not afraid to tell you if you are off the mark or where amendments need to be improved or even if they are possible to achieve. I must admit that, being a non-lawyer, I find that very useful. Not having a lawyer in my office, it is a huge service to us to make sure that we get it as right as we possibly can.

As for the website design on the legislation in this place, I would also like to thank Christine Swift for that contribution. Quite often we have constituents who believe they know what the law is but do not quite understand, and we can now refer them to that website and they can get a better understanding of changes that have been made and legislation that has been drafted and sometimes save themselves the bother of treading their way to court when they realise that it was not working exactly the way they thought it was.

I also believe that after 27 years in this place, the minister is right, that she will be leaving an indelible mark on South Australia and that we have had far better laws passed due to her efforts and diligence and her application of the law in practical terms. So, I personally thank you and I wish you well in your future endeavours.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (16:44): I rise to support your comments as well. I, too, would like to take the opportunity to extend my thanks to Christine on behalf of my office. Although I probably have not had as many dealings with Christine as some other members, I will say that she has always demonstrated a great deal of knowledge, professionalism and courtesy. She is a woman of few words, who not only gets the job done but always produces work of the highest standard that we have come to expect from parliamentary counsel.

Since coming to this place, Christine has been instrumental in drafting amendments for me, particularly in the area of gambling regulation and more recently to the TAFE SA Bill. Importantly for all of us non-lawyers, she has been able to provide advice in easy to understand plain English. I am advised by my staff that my predecessor, Senator Nick Xenophon, certainly kept Christine on her toes when he was in this place. I am sure her workload diminished when he left this parliament. I, together with my staff, wish Christine all the best in her future endeavours. We will certainly miss her.

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (16:45): As a former minister, I simply wish to echo the comments of the Leader of the Government in this place, the Hon. Gail Gago, and thank Christine Swift for her very many years of commitment and devoted public service to this parliament and, ultimately, to the community of South Australia. She definitely will leave the parliament and South Australia a better place. I wish her the very best for all her future endeavours. Thank you, Christine.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (16:46): With the leave of the council, I rise to support your comments and those of other members. I am obviously the only member who can say I was in the house when Christine started and still here when she left. I will leave it to other members to make commentary as to the worth or appropriateness of that set of circumstances.

The PRESIDENT: Do you want to go to Nauru?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: The answer to the question is no, thank you, or indeed joining you in your Winnebago travelling around Australia. I can certainly say that I have got considerably more grey hairs during that particular period. I am sure Christine has; I think it is perhaps just a touch of silver that might have been added in those 27 years of service to members and to the parliament.

As is often the way, the members in parliamentary parties who generally spend the most time with parliamentary counsel are the lawyers, the leaders, the attorneys and shadow-attorneys. That is not a complete rule, but I think that is probably a pretty good rule of thumb. Certainly I know from the Liberal Party's viewpoint over those 27 years that the members who would have spent most time with Christine would have been former members such as the Hon. Trevor Griffin, the Hon. Robert Lawson (I think one of my colleagues referred to him earlier), the Hon. Angus Redford, and possibly even the Hon. John Burdett. I suspect he might have retired about the time that Christine started.

I happened to be speaking on other issues to the Hon. Trevor Griffin last night and I know that he would wish to be associated, albeit from afar, with the remarks, Mr President, that you have made on behalf of the Legislative Council and that my colleagues have made on behalf of Liberal members in this chamber. Christine would have known Trevor Griffin well. He was similarly meticulous with the law, similarly meticulous with drafting and legislative practice. I am sure they spent many productive hours together over the years, whether Trevor was in government or whether he was in opposition.

I, too, join with you and other members in acknowledging the merit of the work that Christine has done as part of a team. I am sure she would be the first to acknowledge she has been a willing part of a very good team. Some have retired, and we have acknowledged some of them before, and some are still serving the parliament and members. I would wish to be associated not only with my current colleagues but with the very many former colleagues who have represented the Liberal Party in this chamber during the many years of sterling service that Christine has given to the parliament and to its members.

The PRESIDENT (16:49): I would just like to thank the honourable members for their contribution and also on behalf of the Legislative Council staff, I know Jan, in particular, and Chris would want to say, 'All the best for the future and thank you very much for your service.'

Next week I will see some of the parliamentarians and the clerks from Nauru, I understand. If you would like me to ask them to stock up with Haigh's Chocolates, Penfolds or anything like that, you had better slip me a note before we get there. All the best for the future.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!