House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-03 Daily Xml

Contents

Badcoe Electorate

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (17:36): Mr Deputy Speaker, can I congratulate you on your elevation to the role of Deputy Speaker. It is lovely to see you in that chair.

I would like to start by thanking the people of Badcoe. It is no small honour to be able to stand in this place on behalf of the people of the inner south-west suburbs, and I am so grateful for their confidence in me at the last election. I have thoroughly enjoyed the last four years, working so closely with my community, so I could not even express in words just how privileged I feel to be able to stand here on behalf of the community that I love.

Obviously, not everyone voted for me, but I can commit to the fact that, whether or not I was supported by individuals in my community, I will be working for the betterment of everyone I represent in the seat of Badcoe and I look forward to doing so in the coming four years. Obviously, it was not achieved without quite a lot of support from any other people, including those here in this chamber today, also my brilliant staff and some fabulous volunteers. It is my joy to look up and see the ladies in pink who are among my volunteer team. I thank Erin and Ellie, and many more members of the volunteer team, who I will thank at some later date.

I would also like to congratulate all those on their re-election, especially new members on our side, on the crossbench and, of course, on the Labor side. I want to mention a few people (which may be dangerous) I particularly want to congratulate; one is my very good friend Nadia Clancy, who is taking up the position of member for Elder and who is a long-time friend of mine. It is a true delight to see her fight and fight for people in her community and to see her sitting here on the benches alongside me. I wish her every good fortune. Olivia Savvas, now to be referred to as the member for Newland, was a member of my volunteer team many years ago and helped me get elected that first time around. I will be forever grateful for her support at that time, and I look forward to supporting her in kind in this place.

Lucy Hood, the new member for Adelaide, is another close friend of mine, a comrade-in-arms in the media and then in the media unit. It is wonderful to see her here. Nick Champion is an old friend from Canberra days, who now finds himself in our illustrious state parliament having upgraded, I think, from the federal parliament.

I also want to make mention that we have the brilliant Susan Close as our deputy leader. She is the first female Deputy Premier of our party, and we are thrilled to see her taking her rightful place on this side of the chamber. It is worth noting that for the first time in this chamber on our side of the benches 52 per cent of the members are women. That is something to be celebrated: that through our approach on the Labor side of engaging women right from the grassroots, engaging women through our party system and through our staffing systems as well, we now can boast brilliant, talented, passionate and hardworking women on this side, every one of whom will be making their communities better and our state better. I could not be more thrilled to be sitting here with them to enjoy their support and, of course, to offer my support to them as well.

Of course the election is just the start. It is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is good government, and we are here at this time kicking off as a good government. I look forward to the amazing things we are going to achieve—particularly those we are going to achieve in Badcoe and also right across the state. We unashamedly have big plans. We have heard the word 'ambitious' many times today, but it is great to be ambitious, to have lofty goals and to deliver on those.

In Badcoe, there are a few wrongs to be righted. I look forward to delivering on the school zone and further consultation on the South Road project to get that right, as well as some bright new ideas, some big ideas, for the people in the inner south-west. I thank this house for the opportunity to continue and I thank my community.