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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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VALEDICTORIES

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Minister for State Development) (17:29): It is my duty to rise to make a few of the customary remarks at this time of the year, wishing best wishes to not only each of my colleagues, on both sides of the house, but also, in particular, to the staff who serve us so well in so many different ways. Can I first say something about the conduct in proceedings in the house. We have tried to lift standards in this house, sometimes with perhaps limited success, but I think that we have at least made an attempt to bring a degree of decorum and civility to this place, which is always important.

I think the truth about this place is that 90 per cent of the work is done by agreement. That, of course, does not suit those who seek to cover the proceedings of the parliament for entertainment purposes, but that is the truth of the matter. It is a pity that more of that did not receive the attention of the media because, in fact, that is the truth of the substance of the way in which this place operates. It is very much the tip of the iceberg that becomes the province of the daily news cycle.

Nevertheless, I would like to thank members opposite for their cooperation in this shared endeavour that we have, which is about serving the people of South Australia. I think that, despite our differences, that is our principal motivation.

Can I say also that the people who support us in this role are crucial. There is obviously, Mr Acting Speaker, the role you play and that of the Deputy Speaker. Madam Speaker herself, of course, often has the challenging task of maintaining order in this house but does so in her elegant, Whyalla way, if those two things can be said in the same sentence. She maintains a common-sense approach to maintaining the proceedings in the house and I think she is respected on both sides of the parliament for that.

Can I thank the clerks and the parliamentary officers. Without them, we would not know what we were doing, I can confidently say.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: With whom we are often not sure.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: That's right. Together, we find a way of running the proceedings of the house to ensure the smooth disposition of business. Can I acknowledge the Hansard reporters for attempting to turn our gibberish into the Queen's English.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Their job is easier since they lost Gunny though.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: That's right. The job has been made much easier since the member for Morphett has slowed down to 1,000 words a minute, but certainly there is no doubt that they do a tremendous job in recording our proceedings. I must say the speed and the accuracy with which they return the drafts is very beneficial.

Can I acknowledge also the marvellous work that is done by the attendants here. In that regard, I want to acknowledge in particular the recent illness of John Moylan and also the recent illness of Joy Cole—the chamber staff who, sadly, are struggling with illness. We wish them all the best as they meet that challenge.

Of course, there are the other people who make this building operate: the people who feed us, the people who make sure it operates effectively, the finance managers and the people who turn our ideas into law—parliamentary counsel. There are all of the staff who support us in our roles: ministerial staff, advisers from each of the agencies and, of course, the drivers who convey us around the place. They are extraordinary people who find a way of actually arriving at the correct venue without even being told where to go, which is a rare talent.

In that regard, I particularly want to acknowledge Steve Tippins, who has been a member of the Public Service for 43 years and who retired recently. He was my driver for the last 11 years and I must say that, frankly, it is like losing a member of the family. He was there at the birth of both of my children—not literally there at the birth but he was with me during the period when my children were born. I can confidently say they have spent more time with him than any other male, just because of the nature of the job and the many occasions that we are together. I miss him dearly. He is a lovely man, a fantastic driver, and he has offered to come back to babysit, which I make take him up on. Of course, what he is doing in his retirement is driving. He loves driving, inexplicably; so he is having a lovely time.

Can I also acknowledge our electorate staff. Many of the ministers and, indeed, country members, who are people who are away from their offices, really rely upon their staff to do the lion's share of the electorate work. They are there when the rubber hits the road. Often very difficult and thorny issues come into electorate offices. They are often dealing with people who are upset, sad or confused, and to turn their grievances into something that they can understand and get help with is a real talent, and we pay tribute to the enormous support they give us all.

Can I also conclude by talking about a group of people who are possibly for many of us the most important people in our lives; that is, our family members. They are people who sustain us in our employment, but, of course, sustain us with their love in our relationships. Our children, our partners, these are the people without whom much of this means very little but with whom we get to celebrate all the highs and we get to be supported in all the lows, which are part and parcel of public life.

It is obviously an enormous challenge when you have a young family, and it is something which requires an enormous amount of understanding from your partner when they attempt to support you in a role of this sort; so I want to thank all of our family members. I also want to thank those who come to this place and support us in a myriad of ways in our daily work back in our offices, back in the bureaucracy. I thank all members for what has been a successful year and a legislative program that we should be proud of. Thank you.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (17:37): Again, it is my pleasure to make a few comments at the end of the year. Looking at the attentive faces of so many eager MPs, I am reminded somewhat of T.S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men which was written, I think, in the 1920s. It begins with:

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass...

But the thing that reminds me most about The Hollow Men is that ends with:

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

It seems to me there is an essence of that in the room tonight as we feel the love as Christmas comes upon us.

Can I begin where the Premier left off by first of all acknowledging my family. I do not have any of my children at home any more, and I miss the days that perhaps the Premier is still enjoying with his family. I have discovered during this past year that there is a wondrous thing called 'takeaway'. I was missing out on having meals with my family. I had spent 30 years as chief cook and bottle washer, and I must admit I was a bit tired of that. I remember coming home sometimes, exhausted after a long day, and their words of greeting would be, 'What's for dinner?' I was really quite pleased when they left home; but I do miss them.

This year, I decided that what I had to do was at least once a fortnight have them up for family meal night. They still need reminders to come, but I have discovered that because they are all poor, living on their own, and having to support themselves, they are more than happy to come home. We have wonderful Indian and Thai and all sorts of things by way of takeaway up in the Hills, so they happily come home because they know they will order far more than is needed and they will get to take leftovers home and feed themselves for the rest of the week. They are very keen to come to my place once a fortnight to have dinner. The other thing about my children, of course, is that they make me the butt of most of their jokes, so they very much keep my feet on the ground.

Can I also thank my colleagues, particularly my deputy, Steven Marshall, and my former deputy, Mitch Williams. Both those gentlemen have been wonderful to work with, and I intend that they both continue to be wonderful to work with. I thank the Hon. David Ridgway MLC, leader in the Legislative Council and his deputy leader, the Hon. Michelle Lensink. It really is a good team and we do have a lot of fun together.

Our new whip is the wonderful Mark Goldsworthy, member for Kavel. Our former whip, Steven Griffiths, of course, did most of the work for most of the year, but I am sure that Mark will catch up as we go into the new year. Deputy whip, Peter Treloar, is also taking on quite a workload. In the upper house, the Hon. John Dawkins is the whip and joint party and shadow cabinet secretary, along with Jing Lee.

Jing Lee does a wonderful job not only as the deputy whip in the Legislative Council but as my shadow parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs. She does an enormous workload in that regard and I thank her very much for that. In fact, very rarely do you get a letter, as I did this week from the Bosnian community, saying, 'This was fantastic. You sent this person along to represent you and she did such a fantastic job we thought we should write and tell you how great she is.' But I already knew how great she was.

I want to take the opportunity to wish all my shadow cabinet and all my opposition colleagues and their families well for Christmas. I will do that individually as well. Only those of us in this game know what a long lonely life it can be at times. In fact, my friend Tony Abbott wrote a book called Battlelines and in that book he points out that those of us who go into politics are volunteers; our families, however, are conscripts.

Those conscripted into it by virtue of a spouse or a family member going into politics are the ones who really suffer and have to do things a lot of the time behind the scenes. We do spend a lot of time here and, in spite of all the rigour of the debate that goes on across the house, most of us when we are beyond this place treat each other with a great deal of respect and civility and actually get on pretty well.

I also acknowledge the Premier and the various ministers and members opposite. As I say, we do generally get on pretty well in spite of our political differences and in spite of the sometimes heated argument during the theatre of the day at 2 o'clock. Madam Speaker, I also acknowledge you, as well as your deputy and chair of committees, and the wonderful Michael Wright who, as we all know, does a fair bit of deputising in both those roles from time to time.

I also acknowledge our staff at headquarters. In the last few years particularly, we have found that we have a much stronger relationship with our staff at headquarters. In the last few months Sanjay Kumar has been acting in the role of director of the Liberal Party at headquarters. He and his staff do a wonderful job for us over there. Of course with our headquarters, as was mentioned today, now being in Leigh Street, it is much more convenient and we have a lot more to do with them than perhaps we did in other days. I also acknowledge our president, Grant Chapman.

I thank all my staff. I will start with the staff in my Heysen electorate office. My staff member, Gaynor (who became a grandmother for the second time yesterday) has been with me for almost 19 years, so she has been on a journey with me since I opened my legal practice. Indeed, she came to work in the first days of my legal practice, before my office was available, at my home. I have seen her children grow up and they are now having children themselves.

Nineteen years is a reasonably long period of time to have a PA with you. When I first had to come to work down here full time as the leader, some years ago, it felt like having an arm cut off, because I was so used to having Gaynor running my life. Even Nick, whom I consider the new chap on the block up there, has been with me long enough to be going on long service leave, so he has been there for a goodly long time.

Down here, of course, I have wonderful staff in the front office. My chief of staff, Michael Fitzgerald, and the various media and policy people in the staff up there not only have to work for me. In government you may not appreciate it, but in opposition we only get my few staff and that has to do for all of the shadow cabinet, so they do an enormous number of hours and they do it with enormous good will. Indeed, one of the delights of my job is when I can hear their laughter from my office. I always think that that is a good sign when you can hear your staff laughing. I seem to hear it quite regularly in that place. I also like the fact that today there was popcorn in the office.

I also thank my driver, Warren. Warren—or 'Wazza' as he is known to many—certainly goes well above and beyond the call of duty. He is an exceptionally good driver who, like the Premier's driver, has a passion for driving and that is all he wants to do, be my driver. I am thoroughly spoilt by him and I thank him. All the opposition and government electorate and parliamentary staff and the Speaker's staff I think deserve our good wishes at Christmas for what they put up with through the year.

I now come to the people in this place because, as the Premier said, the people who work in this place must see numerous members of parliament over the years come and go and they must think that one is a bit of a feather duster and that one is a bit of a rooster at times. They must ponder the legitimacy of some of the people they see before them in this place. Nevertheless, they always maintain their dignity and decorum in the face of enormous provocation. Thank you to the chamber attendants (Legislative Council and House of Assembly) , Serjeant-at-Arms Paul Collett, Clerk Malcolm Lehmann, Deputy Clerk Rick Crump, Jan Davis in the Legislative Council and her deputy, Black Rod Chris Schwarz, and the table staff. Like the Premier, I mention specifically John Moylan and Joy Cole and let them know that they are in our thoughts. We hope that their progress is as good as can be hoped for and that they have as much as they wish for at Christmas.

My thanks go to the building services people, David Woolman and all of that group, as well as Pauline Thompson and all the group in corporate services, the committee members and staff. Also, thanks to the library staff who do an enormous job for all of us. It is the most wonderful library. For the last two nights I have had guests in at the parliamentary dining room and I have taken them on the usual tour and afterwards had the opportunity to take them into the library because the Legislative Council has still been sitting, and they are so impressed with the library. Apart from being a lovely library—and I love books, so I am always enraptured with it—the fact is you can ask the staff in there to look up anything for you or to do any sort of research for you and it is done promptly, accurately, and they do a wonderful job for us.

Speaking of wonderful jobs, I mention Creon Grantham, James and all the parliamentary catering staff both in the dining room, members' bar and the Blue Room. How will we all survive over the Christmas break without fish Fridays? I ask you how we will get by without that wondrous odour of fried fish that spreads through the whole building on Friday. I do not know how we will cope with that. They do a wonderful job, especially when it comes to the dining room at night when we have visitors and we have very limited time. They do a magnificent job in there, making sure that our visitors feel like they have come somewhere very special and, indeed, they have. The procedures office, the cleaning staff, switchboard staff, maintenance and security staff, finance and even the PNSG staff deserve our thanks.

Last but absolutely by no means least, I thank the Hansard staff. Hansard, who make us all sound as though we know what we are talking about from time to time, are really worth their weight in gold. They do a wonderful job. They do it accurately, quickly and I am sure that everyone is grateful for the fact that we sometimes say gibberish but they make it sound as though we have said something sensible. So, thank you, and to all a good night—no, that is Twas the Night Before Christmas, isn't it!

I close by simply saying that this job is the most ridiculous job in the world in some ways but in many ways it is the most wonderful job in the world. It is certainly by far the most interesting. Being a member of parliament I think you get exposed to all sorts of things all around the state, but we nest here during the year. We owe those people who make this place as good as it is for us to work in a great vote of thanks. I take this opportunity on behalf of the opposition to wish all of those people around this place a wonderful Christmas break and a happy, prosperous and safe New Year.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON (Elder—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (17:49): I want to add briefly, as is customary, some of my thanks to people. I will not go through all of the people's names. I had better thank the Clerk and staff here otherwise they may cease to look after me in the future and you, Madam Speaker. From my perspective in the job I do, the whip is very important to me and to making this place run, so I am grateful to Robyn. For those who are new to this place, can I give you a word of advice? Always be nice to the whip because there will be occasions when there is an opportunity for someone to go home early that has arisen and it will be her choice who she rings first, so always be nice to the whip.

Ms Bedford: She's never rung me!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Well, I'm not saying anything.

Ms Bedford: I stay so you can go.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: That is not absolutely correct. But the whips do a great job and I thank the Opposition Whip also. They have to run this place during private members' which does make it quite difficult. I just want to add some thanks to other staff. The library staff in this building are outstanding. We are fortunate—and some of us use the library more than others—and they do a fantastic job, and some of the research that comes out of there is absolutely first rate, and it is little recognised. Of course I thank the catering staff. It is sadly true that I have been here for slightly over 15 years and, so, I have undoubtedly been served more meals by the catering staff than I have been served at home and I guess that that is just the nature of the job. I also thank the building attendants, the centre hall staff, the security officers—I always like it when they do a good job—and the PNSG people of course.

I thank my staff and I would add, lastly, that young Mel has come to our staff in the last year and does an outstanding job. She is highly honest and frank with people, and has a wonderful work ethic. I have actually tried to send her home on occasions and she will not go, which is quite extraordinary. We are grateful for all the work the whip staff, Carol and Wendy do. For anyone that I have missed, I apologise. I again thank my family and my wife Tania. I should thank my chief of staff who has just spent the last 40 minutes stuck in a lift at the Roma Mitchell Building and I thought that was really quite funny. Thanks, Clemow, and I must say that he will now spend the next 40 minutes getting phone calls from people ringing him up, and pointing the finger and laughing at him, but such is life.

Can I thank all of my electorate staff. They vary from time to time. I put in a special word for my driver, Steve Tippens, who I have known—a lovely bloke, a very commonsense guy, a good driver and he does a great job and we will miss him too. I look forward to going along to his retirement show. I will say that it will ease the burden on the Blue Room! If we get Malcolm to retire too, they will probably cut the meals they serve in half because as far as I can ascertain, both Steve and Malcolm have about three lunches and two morning smokos every day. Good luck to them all.

Good luck to John and Joy, our heart goes out to them. I should say at this point, and I no doubt will have time to reflect on it again, do not pull the pin too early. I know that Ivan is sitting there as a parachute for someone else to come in, but I don't know, the place would not look the same without him, would it? He has been here for as long as I remember. We have done Ivan a great favour in the white paper on the CTP because Ivan owns about 50 cars or something like that, so if we cut the rego by about 100 bucks, he is going to be about five grand better off, I think, and no doubt he will come and thank us for that. I say thank you to everyone.

I should say congratulations to the member for Port Adelaide and the member for Ramsay—it is still Ramsay isn't it, they keep changing it—as I think they celebrated one year in the place this week, is that correct? So you only have 14½ years to go to catch up with me, so put your noses down and get stuck into it. Thank you everyone, and I wish you, Madam Speaker, and everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. I do say, try and enjoy it, because there is a lot of stuff in here that we do not enjoy, but for the most part we are decent people, and that is not well understood, so try and enjoy the time off that you all have. I am now going upstairs to engage in the drinking of red wine.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (17:53): Thank you for the opportunity to wish everybody a merry Christmas. As the member for Elder is still in the vicinity, can I say thank you to him for his advice and encouragement on a regular basis. I was taught when I was young to respect my elders and of course that means everybody in this place for me! To the member for Elder, in particular, I want to say thank you and, perhaps as much as anything, as I drive home tonight, I will be driving on a restricted single lane on the Gorge Road and, so, on behalf of all the people of Morialta, Athelstone, Paradise and Cudlee Creek in particular, thank you for that to the Minister for Transport. I wish him well over Christmas, as I do indeed Mel, who assists in the office of the Manager of Government Business.

I will go back to where I was going to start. Madam Speaker, to you and, indeed, to all the parliamentary staff (I will not repeat them, as they have already been named), thank you for your forbearance and your tolerance. 'A Daniel come to judgement,' somebody suggested to me, and it is not far from the truth. I am sure that Portia would have been proud of you.

In particular, in the parliamentary staff, I will add my best wishes to John Moylan and Joy Cole. We all, I know, have them in our thoughts. We have been well served by the people who have stepped up with John and Joy away, but we hope that they have a speedy recovery and get very well and, hopefully, we will see them in these halls before too long.

I will add my thanks to the Premier, the Leader of the Opposition and the manager of government business and the remainder of the Parliament House staff. From the point of view of manager of opposition business, I thank particularly the Liberal staff, who helped all the members on this side as we conducted our business as members of the opposition; the leader's office, who serves the whole opposition team; the whips, Mark Goldsworthy and Steven Griffiths, who he replaced, and their staff, who work for the whole team—Helen Dwyer, Brad Vermeer and Stacey Mussolino, who assists the shadow cabinet.

To the Liberal Party headquarters and, indeed, to my own staff—Scott Kennedy, Raelene Zanetti and Jenny Richardson, our trainee Kahlia Smith and our old trainee Bonnie Luedtke and our casual relief staff Samantha Mitchell and Priya Pavri. I thank the members of parliament on this side, in particular, the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and all of the shadow ministers and all of the members of the team and, indeed, all of the opposition Liberal Party staff. Merry Christmas also to the Independents.

To our families, in particular, who, as others have mentioned, put up with a great deal and they did not necessarily ask for the opportunity but they support us. Hopefully, they love us as we, hopefully, love them and I certainly am grateful and wish all of them a merry Christmas, as I do the community groups, who we will all have much more time to spend with over the coming weeks, and I am sure that everyone will enjoy those community groups' Christmas functions and New Year's functions and all of the wonderful summer functions through January up to Australia Day before we come back to this chamber.

To members of the government, may I say I wish you all the happiness and joy in the world, just no political success. But the happiness and joy that can come without political success, may you have it all.

The Premier, earlier in the day, took the opportunity to repeat some words said by the member for Davenport just before Christmas last year, so perhaps I will conclude with some words that the Premier brought us at the beginning of his term as Premier just before Christmas last year and we might all reflect on them over the Christmas break as we head into next year. He said:

Our profession is not held in high regard. That is regrettable because the reason we are here is a worthy one: striving to create a better society to improve the lives of every South Australian. There can be no doubt that our conduct in this place contributes to the perception that people have of us. My challenge to all of us today is to do better.

Civility is perhaps a quaint notion but civility in parliament is something we should always strive to uphold. It sets the tone for the community about how differences should be resolved. It represents a cornerstone of our democracy—the capacity to reasonably differ on matters of importance. If we do not uphold it, we begin to abandon our responsibilities as a member of parliament.

This Christmas debate tonight I think has shown some of the best that the parliament has to offer. I am sure over the Christmas season, as neighbouring MPs from different parties are at functions together, they will also respect each other and offer each other civility. When we come back next year, I encourage all members of parliament to keep those words of the Premier in mind and perhaps we will have a productive year, one where civilised questions get civilised answers, and we can all be proud representing the people of South Australia in the way that they expect of us.

The SPEAKER (17:59): Honourable members, I crave your indulgence that the clock might stop if it gets past six. I would like, first of all, to endorse all the comments that have been made tonight but again make my own, and please indulge me while I do.

First of all, to my Clerk, Malcolm Lehman, and to Deputy Clerk Rick Crump, thank you so much for all your assistance this year. I said today that your Clerk will make or break you, and I am not really sure what they have done for me, where I fit into that category, but I do appreciate all the help and support they have given me this year, and we will celebrate later.

When I asked the Serjeant-at-Arms, Paul Collett, 'What would happen if you weren't here to bring the Mace in with me in the morning,' he said, 'You can carry it yourself,' so I thought that was most impressive. To all our attendants and table staff in this chamber—Kane up there, keeping an eye on us, Nicole who has done a wonderful job this year and our new people who have come in. We have our table staff—Lauren, Shannon, David—we appreciate all the work you do in this place.

One thing that has been really appreciated, with the absence of John and Joy who have been here forever (particularly John, who has been here probably longer than Ivan, almost), we have realised how much work they have done for us in this place over years that we have not appreciated. Our hearts go out to them; we will be thinking of them over the Christmas period, and certainly we hope they will be back here with us again in February, working away again. We appreciate everything that happens in this chamber: you look after us so well and thank you so much for all the work you do.

To Hansard, to Philip and all his wonderful staff, the myriad reporters who glide silently down the corridors for years on end: we appreciate how good you make us sound. Sometimes I look at what I have said and have thought, 'Oh, that was all right,' and then I realise that it was really Hansard that sorted it out for me. Anthony Hudson, who does so much work around the place for us all, is wonderful with his technical brain. There are other people who assist with this as well. So, thank you to Hansard.

Thank you to the library staff, to Coral Stanley, ably assisted by Dr John Weste. I am so proud of our library now—it looks absolutely wonderful. It is a real showplace to take visitors to. The way it has been set up has involved a lot of hard work and it is a real asset to our parliament. Thank you to them and to all their wonderful hardworking staff. There are so many doctors in the library that Country Health would really appreciate if it had that number of doctors working for it.

To catering, to Creon and to all his staff—and there are so many who are wonderful people—thank you for all the long hours you work, often long after we leave. Thank you to the chefs, Mark and Craig, for your amazing creations. I say a big thank you on behalf of the members here for the reduction in the number of times we are served zucchini at meals. We really appreciate that—the number has dropped considerably. We only see it about once a fortnight now, which is an incredible achievement for this place, so thank you for that.

I also thank the building staff, particularly David Woolman, for the wonderful effort put in this year. It has been a stressful year for our clerks, the building staff and David with the asbestos problem and the work going on in Old Parliament House. It has been very difficult for them. David has some very good staff working all over the place. It is wonderful to see them around here and we appreciate the work they do. David has been a real gem since coming into this place.

A lot of other people have not got a mention here tonight—people like Tammy, the cleaner, who does an amazing job around the place. She wanders around and always has a smile on her face. It was a real credit to the cleaning area when they cleaned out this building here and said that they were surprised how clean our chamber is. Tammy, thank you to you and to all your workers. Also, thank you to Chris and Lynn, who are often heard but never seen—they work in switchboard: we appreciate your work. Liz Lynch certainly looks after us on the JPSC but does so much other work around the place—she is a wonderful asset to us.

Pauline and the travel clerks in services are amazing people. We would all complain if they were not there to help us out. If we have the odd flight that does not work, it is not them as they do all they can to help us out. Also, I thank Kent, our finance officer. I do not know what he does, but he certainly seems to keep things on track here and there always seems to be a bit of money when we need it, so thank you to Kent.

Our security staff who come in here: we appreciate and feel happy you are here. We occasionally have an incident where members feel a little bit nervous, so we thank you that you are always here keeping an eye on us and helping out. The Centre Hall staff do an amazing job welcoming visitors and keeping things going—we appreciate your work.

All our members of parliament: I appreciate your efforts on both sides of the house and also your ministerial staff and staff in the electorate office, etc. The staff keep the building going and keep us going, so thank you to all of you. I would particularly like to thank my Deputy Speaker, Tony, for his efforts this year. The Leader of the Opposition mentioned Michael Wright, and I appreciate the fact that he is always very willing to help out whenever so that I do not have to sit here all day every day, because I think that might be very difficult to cope with.

I want to thank the President in the other place, the Clerk, the Black Rod and all their assistants. Really, we want to thank them for helping us out this year when we had our asbestos scare. I do not know what we would have done. There was all sorts of talk about relocating, etc. It would have been almost impossible, I think, for us to be able to do that. We really do appreciate their cooperation and their support in helping us out with that. We did enjoy our time in the upper house, but I must say that I was so glad to be back here when we did get back.

To all the committees and the committee staff, although you are far, far away, we do remember you and we do appreciate the work you do for our various committees. It is good to see that you come and go across the road and meet with us regularly. I am sure that all members will join me in thanking them.

A few other people perhaps have not been mentioned, people such as Penny Cavanagh, who does amazing work in this place, certainly with the number of young people who come through here, and other community groups do as well. Penny knows what she is talking about, she knows how to do it. There is never a problem with Penny; she goes in there with lots of enthusiasm. Shane Hilton has been a great support this year. I am getting a nod from the Clerk not to worry about him, so we will not worry about him. No, Shane, we do appreciate your work, and you are a delight to work with also.

I would also like to thank Josie in my office and Gary, my wonderful driver, who looks after me. He is better than a husband, because he looks after me far better than my husband ever did. He also now thinks that he is entitled to half of my super because he has been with me for so long. I am not too sure about that, but I have had these discussion with him, and I have just told him, 'Forget it, mate—you're not going to get it.'

To the whip, who is also a dear friend of mine, we have had many adventures this year. Thank you for your cooperation and your support. I will not tell them any of the stories about you, but if they want to see me afterwards, I will. To the Opposition Whip—we have had a couple of changes—I know that you find it tough, Mark, you are learning, but you are certainly doing a very good job. So, thank you for your help and your support.

I also want to thank Carol Putland and Wendy Gee in the whip's office because they certainly keep us going here in government. Carol particularly always seems to know what she is doing, even if nobody else does. Thank you to both of them.

I have probably forgotten people, and I am really, really sorry if I have. I have been racking my brain all day thinking who I need to thank. I guess it is just a big thank you to everybody who works in this place. We would not operate without your support. We spend so many hours here, and particularly for country members, it is our second home. Without your support, help and cooperation, it would be awful to have to come here. You do look after us very well, and we do appreciate all that you do. My family, I won't worry about thanking them because they just have to put up with it and they are in the will, so they will get their just desserts when I am gone.

Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope that you have a wonderful and peaceful Christmas. Everybody have a bit of a break. We don't need to work for 365 days a year. We are entitled to some time out, and I hope that you all take it and that you have a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year. I look forward to us all coming back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in February next year and all raring to go again and enjoy those question times, as we do now. Thank you.


At 18:08 the house adjourned until Tuesday 5 February 2013 at 11:00


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