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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-07-31 Daily Xml
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Motions

Bonaros, Hon. C.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (16:09): I move:

That this council welcomes the Hon. C. Bonaros, elected to this council at the state election held on 17 March 2018.

In doing so, on behalf of government members and Liberal members, we are delighted to acknowledge through this special motion the opportunity for the honourable member to make her first speech to the Legislative Council. I can assure the honourable member that I am sure all members will give her the due courtesy that first speeches are entitled to receive. After that it might be fair game, but we certainly look forward to and welcome the Hon. Ms Bonaros to our chamber.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:10): From the outset, I offer my sincere congratulations to you, Mr President, on your elevation to the position of President, and the sterling job you are doing in the most prestigious of roles in this chamber. Given some of our shared values and beliefs, I am looking forward to some lively debates on the floor of the chamber, which I am sure will arise over the coming weeks, months and years ahead.

I thank also, somewhat belatedly, His Excellency the Governor for opening this session of parliament. I offer my congratulations and heartfelt best wishes to other newly-elected members in this place, namely: my friend and colleague the Hon. Frank Pangallo, who I also thank for his continued support as we serve our first term together and drive the SA-Best agenda; the Hon. Emily Bourke, whom I have known for a long time as a staffer; the Hon. Clare Scriven; and the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos. I thank you all for your kindness, particularly very recently.

I am sure you all share my sense of privilege in having been elected to serve the people of South Australia in this place, a privilege that we know is only bestowed on a very select few South Australians. I am extremely humbled and excited by the opportunity. Lastly, I offer my congratulations to our new Clerk and his team, and I wish our former Clerk, Ms Jan Davis, all the very best on her retirement.

I also acknowledge retiring members: the Hon. Gail Gago, the Hon. John Gazzola, and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars, who was replaced by the Hon. Justin Hanson. Further, I acknowledge the Hon. Kelly Vincent and the Hon. Robert Brokenshire, who both missed out on being re-elected earlier this year. Like so many other members, I would like to pay special tribute to the outstanding work of the Hon. Kelly Vincent in particular. Her election to this place some eight years ago marked the beginning of a much more inclusive and progressive era for the Legislative Council. I am sorry that my party's offer to help her by way of preference flows at the March election did not help her get over the line, but I know that this is just the beginning for her and, importantly, I look forward to working with her on some issues that she championed so passionately for in this place.

I am often asked why I put my hand up to run as a candidate for SA-Best. For me the answer is simple. It begins with the courageous and gracious Melissa Haylock, a young wife and mother struck down so tragically in the prime of her life by the insidious disease mesothelioma, and her devoted husband Garry.

It also includes, but is not confined to, a list of people, including: Di Gilchrist and her husband, Ian Humphrey, deceased; Belinda Dunn, deceased; Evie Mackay and her son Mathew, deceased; Julie Macintyre and her son Lee, deceased; Carolyn Watkins and her husband Andrew, deceased; Sandra and Dale Cooke and their father and husband John Cooke, deceased; Julie Wilson and her two beautiful sons Chris and Mark Wilson, both deceased; my dear friend Andrea Madeley and her son Danny, deceased; Lee and Carol Salvemini and their son Jack, also deceased; and, lastly, my dear friend Terry Miller, who only recently lost his battle to mesothelioma.

These are the names of individuals who have suffered unspeakable and imaginable losses of life and losses of loved ones—the loss of mothers, wives, husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. They are also the people who inspire me each and every day to be the best that I can be. What strikes me most when I think of this select group of people is the courage, strength and determination that women like Melissa, Di, Belinda, Julie, Evie, Carolyn, Julie, Sandra, Dale and Andrea in particular show in the face of life's greatest challenges. Life kicked them in the guts, but instead of crashing to the ground in a crumbling heap they stood tall and fought fearlessly for their families.

Their brave and courageous fights, at a time when their personal lives had been turned upside down, to this day have gone on to help countless others. In Di Gilchrist's case, the very first project to which I was assigned as a staffer to the inspiring and visionary Nick Xenophon, it resulted in a royal commission and sweeping changes to our criminal law. In Melissa's case, it resulted in life-changing legislation for asbestos victims and their families.

Melissa's plight is one that will always hold a special place in my heart. As some of you may be aware, Melissa was the face of the dust diseases campaign, which resulted ultimately in the passage of the Dust Diseases Act and the establishment of a fast-tracked compensation scheme for victims of dust diseases. Without hesitation, this is the single most rewarding project I have been involved in over the past 13 years.

Melissa suffered from mesothelioma, which she contracted because of exposure to asbestos as a child through renovations to the family home. Belinda Dunn shared a very similar story. Melissa was an exceptionally spirited woman, she was also exceptionally beautiful and exceptionally brave. She was a devoted wife to Garry and a besotted mother to her triplets: Imogen, Ethan and Molly. Hers is a family I think of often. Each year, when I attend the asbestos memorial, I take a moment to reflect on her life and her memory. Her strength, courage and conviction will always inspire me to do my utmost to help those individuals fighting for justice.

She did not have to put herself out there as the face of the campaign; in fact, she did not really want to, but she knew it was much harder for the government of the day to look her in the eyes and tell her law reform was not needed than it was to look us in the eyes and tell us the same thing. Melissa knew that with the public on her side she would be able to force the government to agree to meaningful law reform. And it worked. It was Melissa's campaign that really taught me about the power of grassroots campaigning.

I am extremely proud to have worked with these women and men in their fights for justice and thank them for the invaluable lessons they taught me along the way. There is one family in the aforementioned list, Lee and Carol Salvemini, whose fight is, in many respects, still ongoing. To them I say that I will continue to do all that I can to help you achieve the closure you so deeply ache for.

My family history is not dissimilar to many other recent members in this place. In fact, in many respects it bears a striking resemblance to that of the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos—and I am sorry again that I missed your first speech—a resemblance that I attribute to my Greek heritage. I am the product of Greek parents: Dimitrios, who is here today, and Dimitra—or, as they have become more commonly known in Australia, Jim and Toula.

My father, Jim, emigrated to Australia from Pylos in the Peloponnese, together with his mother and siblings, when he was just 11 years old. Two years prior, his father had made the long journey and set about forging a new life for his family here. Together with members of the extended family, they eventually settled in Adelaide. Like many Greeks who made the move to Adelaide, my paternal grandparents, Haralambos and Fotini, purchased a home in the heart of the CBD in Little Sturt Street.

To this day I am absolutely amazed at the number of Greek friends, associates and family members who tell us that they, too, lived in Sturt Street or Little Sturt Street. If you have ever been to Little Sturt Street in the city you would know that there are literally only a handful of cottage-type homes in the street. Those who lived in the street made the most of the space they had. My grandparents were no exception, sharing their five-roomed home with their three newly-wed children. It was not until one of my aunts had her first child that my parents decided it was time to fly the coop and settle into their own family home.

My mother emigrated to Australia from Paradeisia, Arkadia, also in the Peloponnese, when she was in her late teens. She has always hated when I repeat this, but she fudged her birth date to travel to Australia on her own. She was meant to be accompanied by one of her siblings, her sister, but she backed out at the last minute. Even though mum made the trip alone, the intention was always that either she would return to Greece or that her family would one day follow her to Australia. Neither of those two things eventuated and she remained here and eventually met and married my father—a wonderful love that lasted for over 52 years.

They became the proud parents of three children: my sister, Tina; my brother, Harry; and me, the surprise baby. Later, we three siblings were fortunate enough to be joined by our adopted brother, John. John was not adopted in the true sense of the word, but he is a true part of our family. As children, my sister and brother enjoyed having a younger sister, if only to boss and torment me—a lot. I do not share their fair skin and I do not share their light-coloured hair, so it was not a stretch for me to believe them when they tormented me about not really being one of mum and dad's kids.

This was something that seemed all the more likely to me when, in my 20s, I discovered that I had spent my whole life celebrating my birthday on the wrong date. If ever I needed proof of all the taunts over the years this had to be it, but it was not. The Queen Victoria Hospital archives confirmed that for me. It seems that, somewhere along the way, my parents mixed up the dates, and I celebrated my birthday on the 24th instead of the 21stfor the first 23-odd years of my life.

I grew up with my family in Plympton and attended Plympton Primary School and Plympton High School. My father was an opal miner and opal dealer, so we spent much of our time as children travelling between Adelaide and Coober Pedy. That remote, isolated outback town and Little Sturt Street provided some of my fondest childhood memories. I grew up in and still have a very close-knit extended family. My cousins and I did absolutely everything together. When my grandparents babysat, they did not look after one or two of us, but rather half a dozen. My dad was always the favourite uncle because he would not just take his kids out to the beach; he would drive to his sister's house and his brother's house, beep the horn, and keep taking kids until the car was absolutely full.

We got up to a lot of mischief. On one occasion in Coober Pedy, all bar one of us kids were playing in one of the family cars. It was an Easter weekend, and our parents had retreated indoors for a siesta after a few celebratory drinks. My cousin Chris was playing with matches and a pillow. He accidentally set fire to the pillow and, not knowing what to do in his panic, threw the pillow under the same car that we were all playing in. His brother pulled us out of the car before it was well and truly alight. I ran and hid, thinking we were all in a world of trouble. At the same time, my poor mum was being dragged away from the burning car because she thought I was still inside.

My mother has always attributed my interest and work in politics to her side of the family. Her dad, Aggeli, was actively involved in the local politics of Greece, and he was also local mayor of his home town. I was fortunate enough to spend a year living with my mother's family in Greece when I was in my early 20s. It was life changing in many respects. I have many fond and nostalgic memories of Greece, having spent six or seven months there with my family when I was just four or five years old. I will never forget rediscovering smells and places I had visited as a child, the tiny lift to my aunty's apartment, the local patisserie and especially my mum's village and childhood home and the home of my maternal grandparents, Konstadina and Aggeli.

There are countless poems and traditional songs written about the Greek diaspora and 'xenitia'—songs about longing for home, of loss and love and trying desperately to cling to your heritage and even about a lack of belonging in new-found lands. In one of his most well-known songs, Patrida m'araevo se, legendary Greek singer Stelios Kazantzidis sang about the difficult times of the migration exodus of the 1950s through to the 1970s, which saw more than a million Greeks emigrating to the US, Canada and Australia, driven mainly by political and economic reasons. That is my family story. He sang about the fact that, for so many Greeks, there is a sense of being foreign. One of the lyrics in the song reads, 'In foreign lands I am Greek and in Greece I am a foreigner'.

It was not until I visited Greece in my 20s that I finally understood what that meant. For the first time, I felt that I had discovered my family history, my roots. I visited the birthplaces of my parents and I felt an overwhelming sense of belonging, but everyone I met, including my own family—my mother's family—referred to me as an Australian. Back home in Australia, I had spent my entire life being referred to as a Greek. It was at this point in my life when all those songs and poems that I had struggled to understand as a child finally made sense, and it gave me a renewed sense of pride in my Greek heritage.

Greek families tend to make huge efforts to maintain traditions and cultural ties. It is the reason that so many of us are fluent in the Greek language. While other kids went off to after school and Saturday morning sporting activities, my cousins and I were at Greek school and Greek dance school. Finally, all this effort on the part of our parents made sense. Like many immigrant families, today mine is a true reflection of the melting pot that Australia has become. I am extremely proud of all of them and I am pleased that so many of them could be here today.

Most of you would know that this election was my second crack at being elected to this place. I also ran as a candidate in 2014. In the lead-up to that election I was invited to give an address at the YWCA. During that address I spoke of my first job interview as a law graduate. I was told by a very prominent male senior lawyer in Adelaide that I had not one but two things going against me in terms of my career prospects in the legal profession: (1) I was female and (2) I was Greek. I was gobsmacked. It was disheartening but I could not complain: who would I complain to?

However, I was not going to let it deter me either. My parents taught me better than that. My father taught me that when people try to bring you down you stand even taller. He and my mother taught me not to be defined by what others say about you but by your own beliefs and your own actions. So long as those actions are based on your convictions and on what is right nothing else counts. It is a lesson that has held me in good stead throughout my personal and professional life.

I do not have to tell any of you in this place about the need to have a thick skin in the world of politics. Mine has certainly thickened a lot in recent years. I have always gone about my work less interested in the views of those who seek to cast aspersions but absolutely committed to helping others. It is the reason I joined Nick's team in the first instance and the reason I am standing here today. I am under no false illusion as to how I got here.

I fondly recall the day I sat in the interview room, just outside here, at Parliament House and chatted with Nick's advisor, Corinne, who is also here, and she would go on to become one of my dearest friends in this place. We sat and chatted before the door flung open and in flew this man who I recognised only from the TV news. He sat down and asked me a couple of friendly questions before his phone rang. This is something I became extremely familiar with over the next 13 years. It was Leon Byner.

He turned to me and said, 'It's Leon Byner. Do you know Leon Byner?' I very nervously said, 'Yes, he's from FIVEaa.' It was a complete and utter stab in the dark. I did not listen to Leon. I did not listen to FIVEaa but, boy, was I lucky and thankful that my husband did. Nick called me later that night to tell me that I had the job, and I have listened to AM radio ever since.

I met my husband John, who is also here, while I was still at university and he still takes the credit for me landing the job with Nick. Truth be known, he had nothing to do with it. For that I will always appreciate the roles of my two friends, mentors and colleagues, Claire O'Connor QC and Patrick Byrt, both of whom played an integral role in me landing the job with Nick and the invaluable experience I gained while working with Claire and my friend Abby Hamdan will be something I will cherish forever.

However, my husband gets half the credit for our greatest gift in life. Just over 2½ years ago, we became the very proud parents of our little boy, Paul John, the centre of our universe. John and I were not willing to sacrifice home life by having two full-time working parents, so John jumped at the chance to stay home and be a full-time dad. For the first six months, with the help and support of our mothers, we muddled our way through parenthood. I returned to work very soon after Paul's birth. When he was just five months old I began commuting between Adelaide and Canberra. The separation anxiety was torture, although I did secretly enjoy some nights of uninterrupted sleep, unlike my poor sleep-deprived husband. However, never did he once complain, such is his devotion to Paul and to me.

As parents, we were determined to make it work so I invested in a very good breastfeeding pump and a sturdy little esky and each day I would excuse myself from Stirling's office, lock myself away in the ensuite and do my thing. Anybody who is familiar with these pumps knows that they are not particularly quiet, so we did have some very interesting moments in the office. One thing is for sure: everybody knew not to try the tastings in the freezer.

At the end of the week hotel staff would load up my esky with ice, and I would return home with a week's supply of liquid gold for my son Paul. It is fair to say I usually also had a bit of explaining to do at airport security, but it was all worth it. By the time I would get home at the end of another gruelling week, my husband, equally exhausted beyond belief, would be very quick to hand over our son. I still remind him how lucky he is to have spent those precious few months and indeed first couple of years with our son, something not nearly enough fathers have the privilege of experiencing.

To be honest, I do not know how he did it, but I will always be grateful for his support during my years at uni and at work. I am particularly grateful for all the quick lessons and hot tips on subjects that I know absolutely nothing about—he is quite the general knowledge enthusiast. John is an amazing dad and an even more amazing husband, and he has done an outstanding job raising our son through some pretty challenging times, the recent election, which was the most targeted and bitter campaign I have ever been involved with—and I have been involved with a few—being no exception. But that has only driven me to be more determined than ever in striving to make SA-Best a force to be reckoned with.

SA-Best prizes itself on being a party of scrutiny. Our influence from the sensible centre of politics continues to be the driving force of everything we do. Our core focus on cost-of-living pressures for families, gambling reform, ice rehabilitation, health, energy, education and economic development is centred on improving the lives of all South Australians, and we will continue to initiate policies and support legislation to that accord.

Integral to our role in this place, SA-Best will implement and support positive reforms that determine how the state is governed, how essential services are delivered more effectively and how our problems are tackled and solved. We will strive for major parliamentary reforms and big improvements to our government transparency and accountability designed to ensure our ministers and senior bureaucrats are held to account for their performance to ensure the $19 billion state budget, paid for by hardworking South Australians—taxpayers—is spent wisely and well. We will continue to address the disconnect between our communities and government departments, which impacts the lives of so many.

SA-Best will never bow to the pressures from the major parties or vested interest groups. As a state, we know we need to rebuild our population, especially in our regions. We need to establish clear growth strategies and population targets for South Australian regional centres. The fact that we have fewer young people—18 to 34 year olds—living in South Australia today than 35 years ago is symbolic of the state's decline. Our aim is to play a lead role in introducing and supporting positive outcomes that will see the exodus of our young reversed, as well as encouraging business migrants to our state. We also need to establish clear growth strategies and population targets for South Australian regional centres.

Protecting our most vulnerable people, including our aged and disabled, is a fundamental responsibility of government. The current laws and systems in South Australia are wholly inadequate to afford vulnerable people over the age of 18 even the most basic of protections. SA-Best will work hard to address these matters as priorities. SA is a great place to live, work and play. We all need to work hard in this chamber and in the other place to ensure it reaches its true potential. We owe it to the generations ahead.

Mr President, as you are aware, none of us get to this place without the help, support and guidance of many people, so I would like to thank a few of them today. Firstly, to Nick Xenophon: thank you for opening my eyes to so many wrongs; thank you for the opportunities you have given me; thank you for your friendship, wisdom, wise counsel and mentoring; but above all thank you for trusting in me. I will not let you down; I will not let our team down.

To my dear friend, Carren Walker, thank you for everything, W. To our federal colleagues, Stirling, Rebekha, Rex and our former senator, Skye Kakoschke-Moore, who is here today, I look forward to keeping up the good fight with you for years to come. I am particularly grateful to Stirling for the opportunity to work with him at the federal level, amongst all the craziness more recently. I know we are both immensely proud of the work that we did on immigration matters in particular and the fact that we were able to defeat the federal government's mean-spirited citizenship bill that would have seen families like mine excluded from eligibility for Australian citizenship.

To our team here at SA-Best—the one and only amazing talented Pat, my Canberra spouse and ever so entertaining roommate; our amazing wordsmith, Sean; the ever efficient Amanda; the studious Joe; and our latest recruits, Marley and Evan—welcome, and thank you for your outstanding work so far. To my federal staff colleagues, many of whom are here today, we know that behind every member there is a great bunch of people who keep the wheels turning—thank you. To Rachel, Dr Des, Maria, Anna, Michael T and soon-to-be-dad Jono, thank you for helping me through the craziness that was Canberra and getting to where we are today.

I thank our loyal and committed SA-Best members and supporters, our outstanding candidates and team behind the scenes who went into battle for us at the state election, especially Natan, Shane, Blake, Sarah, Anna, Tina, Sammy, Ebony, Sophie, Taya, Michael, Ange, and four exceptional women—Fiona, Marilyn, Maggie and Kristina—who, can I just say, were at the campaign literally from 8.30am until 5 or 6 or 7 or even 8 in the evening, every single day; they were absolutely amazing. I also thank Maureen and Graham. Without you all, neither Frank nor I would be here in this chamber representing you. We have a lot of work to do and we will not fail you.

To my girlfriends and friends, there are just too many of you to name, but thank you for your unwavering support. To my loving family, to my parents and two best friends, where do I begin? I am so immensely proud to be your daughter and grateful for everything you have taught and given me. I will cherish you both always, and I love you. To my sister Tina, my brother Harry and, of course, John, and all my beautiful nieces and nephews—Samuel, Alice, Dimitri, Angelo, Kristina, Jake, Logan, Antoni, Luka and Ari—the gifts that keep on giving, I call them: I love you with all my heart.

To my other favourite person in the world—and I hope she is listening—Mary, I am so proud of you and I love you, cuz. To Uncle Steve, I do not need to tell you what you mean to me. To our dear friends, Michael and Valerie—or, I should say, Valerie and Michael—thank you for blessing our son with life's most precious gift. To my godfather, Andrew, another constant in my life, who is truly one of the most giving and caring people I know, we love you dearly. To Paul and Fil, my son's nonno and nonna, thank you for all your support, and to our dear friend Tina, thank you does not even begin to cut it for seeing us through to today.

Now to my handsome and long-suffering husband, John, whom I know I have already spoken about, but he deserves another mention. You are an amazing person. I know I drive you absolutely insane, but your love is, and always has been, unconditional. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your patience, your support and your selflessness. Thank you for looking after my beautiful Millie when I told you there would be no need to. Above all, thank you for the amazing job you are doing raising the apple of our eye, our beautiful son, Paul John. I love you both so very much. Paul, I hope I can instil in you the very same values my parents—your grandparents—instilled in me, and I hope I can make you as proud of me as I am of my parents.

Mr President, a friend recently told me of an interview she had heard about the infinite nature of the universe. I dug up the article this interview was based on, which talked about the fact that the earth is just a speck, a tiny blue dot in that universe. It is also the only dot where life as we know it is said to exist. If the earth is tiny, we are even smaller, especially compared to the quadrillions of ants and other species, and the trillions of galaxies around us. This made me think. We are all striving so hard to make a mark in life, fighting against competing forces and searching for relevance, and it is tough.

We all do it in here every single day, and in the grand scheme of things, what we achieve may not be greatness in the true sense of the word but if our actions make someone else's life that little bit easier, then I believe they are truly worth it. It may not be rocket science, it may not be earth shattering. We do not have to change the world through our actions but changing someone's life could mean the world to them. I believe in doing good, and if that is all I can achieve through my work here, then it will all be worth it. If I can make a difference no matter how small to the lives of others, then my job will be done.

Mr President, as you know, this is a speech I had planned to make in very different circumstances and it is with a heavy heart that I have made it today. On 6 June this year, just 15 days shy of her 74th birthday, my mother fell asleep. She did so surrounded by her family, listening to a pre-recorded interview I had done with SA sports legend Graham Cornes as part of his popular Conversations with Cornesy segment on FIVEaa. Anybody who knows my mum knows she is an extremely private person, so my constant questions about her life, her early life in Australia, were always met with the same 'Why do you need to talk about me?' response.

When I sat down with Graham for that interview, I knew Mum was ill but the last thing I wanted to do was break down on radio, so I focused on the light-hearted stuff. The truth is Mum made a massive sacrifice for her kids and her family. They were her universe and she ours. The year I was born, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Up until the late 1980s, she went in and out of remission more times than any loved one deserves to. As kids, we had absolutely no idea. We always knew when Mum was unwell but never had any idea of the extent of her condition.

Growing up, I would often accompany her to medical appointments and I later learned that she would tell her specialist not to mention her lymphoma or the true extent of her condition while I was in the room. She tried to shield us from it all, and to a large extent she fought in silence. In fact, it was not until 2008 that we learned about the true extent of Mum's condition when the lymphoma resurfaced. It was at that time that I made the decision to stop working as a federal staffer and return to state parliament to spend more time with my family and, importantly, to keep a close eye on my Mum. I drove her absolutely crazy.

In recent years, Mum would recall all the times she had undergone chemotherapy or radiotherapy when we were kids, even while Dad was away working. She would even drive herself to and from treatment. It really started to dawn on me at that time how hard it must have been for her with her own parents and siblings a world away in their homeland. As I said, family was everything to Mum, regardless of their geographical location.

When the lymphoma came back in 2008, it shook us to the core. Mum had been in remission for 20-odd years up until that point. But Mum being Mum, she courageously and without fuss fought it off once again. When it raised its ugly head again some three years later, she did the same. Her strength is absolutely amazing. But none of this deterred her from getting ahead. Despite her illness, she pushed ahead to run one business after another. She single-handedly managed to establish a very successful family business, much to the surprise even of my father. Mum went about everything she did without any fuss or fanfare. She never complained but she has always gone above and beyond to ensure her kids and grandkids have everything they need.

She has always been known for her amazing cooking and her kids have always been known for going to Mum and Dad's for Greek 'meals on wheels' at least every other night. When my son was born, she found a new spring in her step. It was like she had reversed the ageing clock by 10 years. She was there with us every single day. In March of this year, Mum was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. She fought until there was just no fight left. Her passing was sudden and completely unexpected. It has left a massive and unfillable void in our lives. She is the heart and soul of our family, and we miss her terribly.

I pause here to make special mention of the Hon. Kyam Maher's speech in this place last week when he spoke of the love and devotion he has for his own mum. What resonated with me during his tribute to his mother was his particular reference to the theme for NAIDOC Week: 'Because of her, we can!' Those poignant words hit home as they bear a striking resemblance to a quote made by another person, well-known Aboriginal advocate Tauto Sansbury, who used similar words to describe his own mother's influence on his life: 'Because of her, I did.'

I get great comfort from knowing that mum fell asleep listening to the radio segment with Graham Cornes. She took her final breaths just after I finished telling Graham about her life story, her sacrifices and about attributing my love of politics to her side of the family. She fell asleep knowing that 'because of her, I did'. Mr President, with those words I thank you once again and look forward to making my mark in this place over the years to come.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

The PRESIDENT: May I add my own congratulations on your election and wish you every success in this place.

Motion carried.

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