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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-11-28 Daily Xml
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Adjournment Debate

Valedictories

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (16:45): I move:

That the house at its rising adjourn until Tuesday 4 February 2025.

The parliament is set to conclude its work of calendar year 2024 and I think that presents an opportunity for members to reflect not just on the year that we have had, or indeed even what is potentially before us in 2025, but just to take a moment of pause to express our gratitude and thanks for a great number of things. One of the great blessings of the Christmas period is that for those of us who lead busy lives, and that is pretty much 1.7 million people in this state, we have a moment of pause just to take a deep breath and think about those things that matter most.

In terms of the parliament, the members of this house often fall into the trap of thinking everything just happens and the world revolves around us when in actual fact the opposite is true. Nothing happens without an extraordinary amount of hard work behind the scenes. A lot of people make us individually look better than what we are and make what is a rather complex organism in terms of the parliament somehow function smoothly and coherently, despite members' best efforts. I think it would be appropriate to express our gratitude for everybody who contributes to that effort.

I start, of course, in that regard by thanking you, sir, for your stewardship and leadership as Speaker of the house. You have not had an easy task in that regard because you were thrust into this role in a way that was not necessarily anticipated. I think you have stood up to the plate and done a sterling job. The Presiding Officer has a thankless task. You will never please everyone—but thus far I actually think that question time and the conduct of the parliament has operated pretty smoothly and I am very grateful for your efforts. More than that, I think it is recognition of your substantial contribution in this place over 18½ years, which is not a small number. I do thank you for your ongoing effort. It is always a privilege to be in your electorate, as I was with you a few weeks ago, to see the fellowship you enjoy with so many residents on Fleurieu Peninsula.

Can I also acknowledge the Deputy Speaker, who is here with us. The Chair of Committees' role is a slightly less thankless task than the Speakership. Again, there has been a substantial legislative agenda, and I do not intend to use this opportunity to espouse all the achievements of the government over the last 12 months, but there has been a substantial legislative agenda and that requires your leadership, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank you for it.

To the Clerk, Rick Crump, and Deputy Clerk, David Pegram, how you stay sane is beyond me. You must take tips from the Hansard staff, whose mind is not allowed to wander probably as much as yours is—not that I ever suspect you do that. But to the Clerk and to the Hansard staff—bravo. We cannot thank you enough for your patience, we cannot thank you enough for your resilience. One day I will look up and you will be eating popcorn, but that has not yet happened.

Can I also thank all of the house staff: the Serjeant-at-Arms, the house services officers, the research officers and the corporate staff who make it all run so smoothly. John Weste—who, of course, is more than just the head of the parliamentary library here—is an icon, not just of the parliament but of this state, and we thank John for everything that he does. Every time you are in here with a group of schoolkids—I do not get to do it as much these days—and John takes the time to tell a story or two, he does it with equal parts enthusiasm and knowledge, which is something we are eternally grateful for.

The team in the Blue Room, particularly Nicky, Karen and Belinda—we love the work that they do. They not only keep us fed, but more than that: we love their personalities and their forthright wit, humour and engagement. I have only been down there once this week; for some reason I have not been down there much lately—anyway, we love them all, and they are rippers, and they give this place a bit of character.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: They are watching.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Are they? They are watching. In that case, I should use all five minutes to speak about Nicky, Karen and Belinda. They would expect nothing less. They give the place colour and character. You get to know them a bit better in opposition because you are around a bit more and they would be the life of any party.

To all the parliamentary dining room staff, again we thank them so much. I had an important dinner last night with the global leadership of BAE Systems. Kylie was looking after us. You just know every time you bring guests into parliament that they will be utterly impressed with the quality of the service, including the meals. Can I thank Creon who makes all that work. Creon has a great degree of attention to detail. As we speak, he is probably making sure that everything is humming along in the dining room for an event that we are about to host, so can I thank Creon for his leadership and his diligence and steadfastness.

I thank the security team who make sure everything happens and works—the PSOs and SAPOL staff—and everyone on the switchboards, the People and Culture team and the building maintenance team. It is an old building, but she holds up alright because of their care and custodianship.

Can I take the opportunity to thank a few of my staff. I am running out of time here. I thank my EO staff: Pete Gonis, Gayle, Suzie and Sophia. They make it all work on Port Road, Welland, and I really appreciate their efforts. We had streetcorner meetings recently and it all sort of ticked along without me breathing down their neck in the lead-up to it. Everything just worked, and they follow up on all those queries assiduously. Premiers are not able to spend as much time in their electorate as they would like, and you rely on your EO staff even more. They are great people.

Can I thank the team at DPC led by Damien Walker. Damien, of course, is leaving and this is probably my only opportunity—and I wanted to do this on another occasion—to express in this forum why Damien is still the CEO of DPC and how eternally grateful I am for the work that he has done for the government and the people of South Australia. He is a great South Australian: a boy who grew up in Tea Tree Gully, started out in the Public Service and rose all the way to the highest Public Service officer in the land, and he has been magnificent. In fact, Mr Speaker, he was introduced to me by you. I wish him all the very best as he takes up a new opportunity in the sunshine state, but I retain hope that one day he will return home and continue to serve the people of this state.

He has got a whole executive team around him that I am very, very grateful for. I do want to give a shout-out to Nari Chandler, the deputy CEO. Nari has really stood up to the role of deputy CE within DPC and has got a number of things on the boil at the moment that I am very grateful for. There is a whole team around Damien and Nari. Can I just acknowledge, at the expense of leaving people out: Wayne, Elspeth, Ben, Amy, Andrea, and everybody else in leadership positions in DPC. They do a great job.

With regard to my office—and with your indulgence, Mr Speaker, I might go beyond the 10 minutes—I want to start out by thanking the most important person in any leader's office, the most important by a country mile, and that is the executive assistant, the person who manages the diary. As I am sure the Leader of the Opposition is well aware, they are mission critical in the functioning of the office, and I want to give a shout-out to Nicole Chapman who took over from Ann in my office. Ann has done an incredible job as well. She makes it all sort of tick in every respect.

Then there is a whole other team in my office: the office manager and her team, so Jess, Paul, Angela, George, Leigh, Andrew, Monica, Anne-Marie and Maddy—that whole office team and the extraordinary amount of correspondence they make work. To my political staff, Cat, Vic, Lawrence, Caitlin, Adam, Pam, Nick, Minh, David, Harry and Wendy—'I think there is also a speech guy,' he has written here, 'And the speech guy, Andrew something.' Yes, I thank you, Andrew! He is quite the character and a great fellow; he is quite crafty and thoughtful.

I also want to thank the other person who sits above all of this and that, of course, is JB. JB is a formidable human being. There are two people I am scared of in this world, he is one of them. I will not tell you who the other is! Honestly, they work so incredibly hard and I would not be able to do the work that I do without them.

Beyond that, there is the broader Labor family that I am very grateful for, including everybody who makes up the parliamentary Labor Party. We finished the year with two additional members, but we do well to not look at ourselves individually, but rather as a united outfit. It is a privilege to be the leader of this institution, this extraordinary group of people. I am so exceptionally lucky and I am very, very grateful to each and every one of you, in all of your various capacities.

I do want to particularly thank the Deputy Premier. I could not ask for a stronger woman than Susan to be the second in charge of the government. Her contribution is formidable and consistent and I am very, very grateful for it. She provides a beating heart to the government in a range of policy areas in a way that is invaluable and I cannot thank her enough.

I cannot name every member of the cabinet, but I do want to name two positions that are particularly important in the context of the parliamentary year: the Leader of Government Business and Father of the house. He says, 'If you run out of time, continue on indulgence.' We all know what that means. The Father of the House is also increasingly an icon of this place. I know he does not necessarily enjoy affection from absolutely everybody in the chamber, but he certainly enjoys our affection. He is a formidable parliamentarian, a high-quality minister and is also the Leader of Government Business, which is an important role, as I know the deputy leader of the Liberal Party and also the member for Bragg are well aware.

I want to thank the whip. It is a thankless task, being the whip. The whip has done an outstanding job in ensuring that it all ticks and everyone is where they are supposed to be. Whipping is very much a full-time exercise, particularly when parliament is sitting. I want to thank the whip, along with his counterpart.

I would also like to acknowledge other members in this place who are not on the government side of the house. Politics is a tough business; we have seen evidence of that consistently around the world. Notwithstanding the toughness of politics in this place, I think there is a civility to politics comparatively, relatively speaking, in South Australia versus what we see in other parts of the world. I hope that is able to continue. It should be robust, it should be highly competitive—and that it is. I am the first to acknowledge that the opposition has the task of holding the government to account or taking our heads off, whichever way you want to look at it. I want to thank the opposition. We have been able to work together constructively on a range of things, which is to your great credit and I want to thank you for that. I should acknowledge the crossbench in that regard as well, and members in the other place.

We are very lucky to collectively call this state home. The one thing we will have in this state that many others around the world will not is a peaceful Christmas. We will have a peaceful Christmas in the state of South Australia. We had the Sudanese community here yesterday, and you can only imagine how much they would give up everything they have to have what we have. I think that invites us to also think about those people in South Australia who might not be as fortunate as members in this chamber are. At this time of the year, we would do well to resolve to continue all of our efforts—individually and collectively, everybody in this place—to make sure that as many people in this state enjoy the opportunities that we are so fortunate to have.

Mr Speaker, on that note I would like to wish you and every member of the South Australian community a safe and Merry Christmas. I wish all the peace and prosperity in the world to everybody. God bless.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition, I extend the same indulgence that was extended to the Premier if you happen to go over time.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (17:02): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I also rise on indulgence. I echo much of the sentiment that the Premier pointed out. As the Premier alluded to, whilst we are adversaries we are not necessarily enemies. I have appreciated the opportunity to conduct the business of opposition with some civility, and in some ways actually work in a very constructive fashion, so I do echo those sentiments as well.

There is obviously lots to be grateful for. It is that time of year when we are able to reflect on the year that has passed. I, too, would like to acknowledge and put on the record my thanks and gratitude for the many people who support us here in the roles that we undertake. First and foremost, I would of course like to thank my family: my wife, Charissa, and son, Leonardo. We have had some changes on this side of the house in the last few months and that has involved a few more hours, so I think it is very important to put that on the record.

I am sure I speak for all of my colleagues. We all owe a great level of gratitude to all of our family and friends for supporting us in these roles. It is obviously quite a privilege and honour to serve in this place. We are all, yourself included, humble servants of this place. We are very fortunate to be in these roles and represent our various communities in the way that we are able to.

We are obviously very fortunate to call South Australia home at a point in time when there are so many conflicts around the world, as the Premier alluded to. We are so fortunate to be here in South Australia, in a peaceful democracy, enjoying the rights and freedoms that we do. I want to pay tribute to the people who help to allow this parliament to function in the way that it does.

I want to start by thanking the clerks and their teams. To Rick Crump, I have to put my thoughts on the record: thank you for all that you do. Speakers especially know how well served they are by having someone with the experience of Mr Crump and also Mr Schwarz in the other place, having literally hundreds of years of precedents at their disposal. They are so pivotal to the good governance, order and maintenance of the house and the staff in it as well.

Thank you to Mr Crump and also to your EA, Travis Freckleton; to David Pegram, the Deputy Clerk; to Lauren, the Clerk Assistant and Serjeant-at-Arms; and to your teams as well. Thank you for your outstanding work and the way that you conduct your business so professionally. Of course, in the other place, thank you to Chris Schwarz, Guy Dickson and their various teams as well.

Thank you to the fantastic team at Hansard and the Leader of Hansard, Mr Andrew Cole. Along with a few others in this place, I was fortunate enough to hire Mr Cole. We knew he was the best person for the job and he is still there, which pleases me greatly. He is doing a great job. Thank you to the Deputy Leader, John Clarke, and the team as well. Everything they do is so precise and prompt. Sometimes they are tested, as we saw overnight, but they have to listen to us and hear everything that we say. I do not know how they resolve that one, but they work it out. Thank you for putting up with all 47 of us. It is such an important task to be able to go over that footage and read those records, so thank you so much, sincerely.

Thank you to the building services staff. It seems like there is always something that David Woolman and his hardworking, dedicated team are doing in this place. I think if they could design this place again, maybe they could have an extra lift here or there; that might be a job for a future Treasurer. Whatever it is—a nail for a painting, sorting something out in the car park, fixing a light bulb—nothing is not manageable, and even with all the craziness of maintenance, construction and cleaning, they always seem to keep the building afloat and keep it topnotch and ticking along. We really do sincerely appreciate what they do.

Thank you to the team at PNSG. There is nothing worse than when a bit of IT equipment does not work, so thank you to the team at PNSG for making sure, firstly, that we are cybersafe. We have seen attacks on other sectors and other parliaments around the world but we have not had that here, thank God, and there is always help there if we ever need it.

Much has been said about the Blue Room. We have seen many changes, certainly in the 10 years of my time here. We finally have protein bars, which I am sure the Premier would be very happy with. They do an amazing job. Nicky, Karen and Belinda: thank you for being so friendly and knowing everyone's name in the building. They are so important to the culture and the gel of this building. We sincerely appreciate that they are always there.

I should say something about the most powerful man in the building, and that, of course, is Creon Grantham. For the newer members who have not worked that out yet, he is the most powerful person in the building. Thank you to the catering manager and his team in the catering division: all the chefs, the kitchen staff, the dining room staff and the cellar staff.

I also thank the cleaners, if they are listening. We sincerely thank you for all that you do. We know especially that COVID really changed the way things were done in this place. We sincerely appreciate that it is always impeccable in here and we are always looked after. On both sides of the chamber, we do a lot of entertaining here and we take people through throughout the year, and we sincerely appreciate all that you do.

Thank you to Dr John Weste, who just marked a significant milestone, and his team. In the parliament, and especially in opposition when we find sometimes that resources are a little bit leaner than for the government benches, we certainly depend upon the resources of the library, and we very much appreciate that.

Thank you to Natalie Badcock, the Community Education and Engagement Manager, and her team. We would bring probably tens of thousands of students and members of the public through here, and we appreciate being able to do that. We also appreciate the opportunity to provide them with the relevant resources so that we can tell the story of a very proud institution that goes back to 1857. We have lots to be proud of in this place, and it is important that we tell that story to South Australians when they visit. Thank you to the protective security and parliamentary administration staff as well for helping to keep us safe.

I would also like to put my gratitude to my parliamentary colleagues on the record. Firstly, our leadership team: the member for Morialta; the Hon. Nicola Centofanti in the other place, the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council; and the Hon. Jing Lee, Deputy Leader of the Opposition. I am grateful, especially in what has certainly been a challenging three or four months, for their steadfast support, and also to the rest of the parliamentary team as well. To the shadow cabinet, whether they are new or stalwarts, I am very grateful for the balance of youth and experience that we have in those positions. Thank you for the ideas and the efforts that you bring to the table.

To my office, obviously we have built a new team, but I am very grateful for the dedication and the commitment of the staff in the leader's office. With your indulgence, sir, I might put some of those names on the record: my Chief of Staff, Aric; in the media team, Lesley and Gretel; Nigel, Ned and the digital creative team; Anna, Max and Firas, who work in policy; Anna, who has recently joined our office; of course, our office manager, Dawid; and staff who assist in the broader team, such as Caitlin, Zane and Andrew, who also contribute significantly to our team in their various capacities.

Also, to enjoy the fruit you have to water the roots: we all have an electorate office. We all have an electorate office that works very hard. I need to put on the record that I have been very fortunate with electorate staff. They have served me for a long period of time. There is my office manager, Simone Bakopanos. Many of our team remember her as Simone Mazzeo. Unfortunately, we lost her from the eastern suburbs; she married a good Greek boy from the western suburbs. Congratulations to her on getting recently married to Stavros. She has just come back from her honeymoon. She has been with us in the office for about eight years. Thank you to Federica Lupis, who has been with me for over 10 years, and Sharon, Spencer and George Belperio, who have helped out as well.

The team behind us as parliamentarians does not go unnoticed and unthanked. I do want to thank the outstanding team that we have right across the board. Much has been said about the whips, the Davids. I have to be very grateful to the Davids. Often, we might be paired out with other arrangements. I will flick on and see what is happening in the house, and I have to say, both Davids do a sterling job of managing the opposition business, ably led—sometimes coerced, but ably led most of the time—by the Manager of Government Business. We appreciate his experience and his wisdom. We are always learning, so thank you for that. Thank you to the member for Bragg for stepping in as well in his new position as Manager of Opposition Business.

Mr Speaker, I have to thank you as well. I trust that the speech notes have been well received. It is something I learnt from law school: get it all down on one page. Like all Speakers, you have kept us to work civilly, well behaved in the chamber. As you have worked out, it is quite a privilege to be in what is a very highly decorated position. I thank you for your service that you provide in this role and also wish you and your family a safe and merry Christmas.

My thanks also goes to the public sector employees. We have over 100,000 in this state who work in the public sector. They go about their business. In the past, as a minister, one of the privileges was getting to know many of these good hardworking people who loyally serve the minister of the day. They go about their business, and the state would not function as well as it does without their hard work. I do appreciate all that they do.

To those who are working over Christmas, while many of us will get some sort of break, we have to remember the hardworking and dedicated South Australians who do not necessarily get a break. The SAPOL officers, the firefighters, the paramedics, the doctors, the nurses and many others—many of those will be out there working and keeping us safe while some enjoy time off. I thank them for their dedication and their willingness to put their state first during this festive period.

To bring things to a close, I would like to reiterate my thanks to all we have mentioned. Whilst we get very busy and sometimes tied up in our day-to-day tasks and demanding roles, I do sincerely hope that everyone has a bit of an opportunity to catch up with loved ones, with their friends and family, over the Christmas period. I take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous 2025.

The SPEAKER (17:14): Thank you, leader, and thank you to the Premier as well. I would like to add a few thankyous as well, firstly to all members of this place for your cooperation as I have had the trainer wheels on for the first few months in this role. It is, as the Leader of the Opposition says, a great privilege to be here. I have tried to conduct myself in the role with some humour, just trying to make sure that it is not war here. We all should probably get along pretty well and, I think, for the main that is what happens. Thank you for taking the debates in good spirits.

We farewelled some people this year, some of them through condolence motions, like former Premier Steele Hall and former minister and trailblazer Jennifer Cashmore. As a parliament, we had two mums in this place who welcomed sons this year, which I think we should acknowledge: the member for Badcoe and young Quinn, and the member for Schubert and Rupert. I thought it was a bit of a sign of the times, with people coming in here younger, with their families, and continuing to build their families while they are in this place. I think we should celebrate that because we are, in a way, a family, and to have new additions to our parliamentary family is a good thing.

We welcomed two new members into the place, the member for Dunstan and the member for Black, which meant we also farewelled two members from this place. I want to wish Steven Marshall and David Speirs all the very best for the next part of their careers and lives. On that matter, I want to foreshadow something that I have discussed with most people in here, that is, what we are going to do next year to begin improving this place in terms of the transition from politics to life after politics. For any people interested in how politics works, Deakin University in Victoria did a quite telling study about two or three years ago into the Victorian parliament that showed the brutal nature of the transition from politics to life after politics. Some of the findings were quite brutal.

I have spent a fair bit of this year getting around talking to former South Australian members of parliament and listening to their stories. It is pretty hard. We are a group of people who look after our constituents. We are a group of people who look after people in our portfolio areas, and we all work really hard on that, but sometimes we do not necessarily look after ourselves and our cohort. There are some simple things we can do to help improve that.

One of the things that came back from the people I spoke to, and in the Deakin report, is that your political career just ends. If you went out to fight an election with every intention of winning, you did not get the opportunity to stand up here and give a valedictory speech and put on the record your thanks to your family, to the community groups, to the organisations. So one of the changes we are going to make next year is I will write to every former member who is still alive to give them the opportunity to write a valedictory speech, which we will then put in a virtual book in the library.

I want to thank Dr John Weste, the head of the library. As soon as I mentioned it to him he said, 'We're on board,' which is great, because without these resources it is pretty hard. So there will be a virtual book, which we might call 'The House of Assembly: the last word' or 'the final word', where you get to tell your story from your perspective. Most people know that when you are no longer a minister, for all your wins, someone else is cutting the ribbons on them, someone else is taking all the credit for the money. You are very quickly forgotten in those positions, and the work that you did is very quickly forgotten. For the sake of people's families and their legacy, I hope that will be one way of improving things for people who leave this place voluntarily or by being voted out.

The other thing that we are going to introduce is professional development for members of parliament, which I think is really important. We look at the public sector, we look at the private sector, and ongoing professional development is a big part of having a healthy workforce and having a workforce that gets better, that learns. We sent out an invitation yesterday and the responses have been fantastic. We have had a lot of people just saying yes, and that is for the first course which is going to be in February next year. It will be delivered by the McKinnon Institute, which has done a really good job in some other parliaments and government departments around Australia in terms of bringing about knowledge of political leadership and showing us the way on how we can all be better.

I want to thank the Clerk and the Deputy Clerk, Rick and David, and everyone else who helps so much in this chamber. To Lauren, our Serjeant-at-Arms, we have not had to arrest anyone or lock anyone up yet, but we are getting some advice on how we go about that.

To the house service officers, Will, Damien, Matthew and James, thank you very much for everything that you do. Rhys, I did not forget you, I just wanted to say all the very best to you and your partner. I know you are expecting your first child sometime between now and Christmas, so we hope that you have an extra special Christmas as your family grows.

To our procedure office staff—Josh, Alison, Tonia—thank you very much for all your hard work, keeping me on the straight and narrow, telling me what I am meant to say at the right time. To everyone across every division: I know the Premier and the leader have mentioned so many of the wonderful people in this place who do so many things across all the different divisions. Every one of you is very much appreciated and all the work that you do is very much appreciated by all of us. We are in here sometimes late at night, early in the morning and we have to all get on and work together, and it is made so much easier by the friendly people across every part of this parliament. Again, we thank you for all the hard work that you do.

I would like to thank Kerry and Bridget who run the Speaker's Office. They do an amazing job because as well as doing the day-to-day stuff we are actually doing some of this work on the professional development, we are doing some work on tracking down former MPs and things like that, so they are probably going a bit over and beyond. In the Mawson electorate office, thanks to Jenni and Jo, terrific people who are members of our local community who serve our local community so well. I want to thank all those people.

I want to wish everyone in this place and all the people who work in the building a very merry Christmas. I think we have a lot to look forward to in 2025. I am looking forward to getting back here and getting on with the job.

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