Page194 - Week 01 - Thursday, 3 December 2020
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family. To everyone that will be working over this time to allow others to spend time with their families, I say thank you.
I want to thank my staff. They have worked particularly hard this year. To Josh, who a lot of you know, and who recently left for bigger and better things, I say thank you. I thank Zoe, Abby and Flynn. There has been a lot of hard work this year, both in the office in the middle of a pandemic and out on the campaign trail. We worked pretty hard this year and we got a good result; I think we are all happy to be back here. I do not think any of us really want to test our skills in the market in the middle of a recession. We are still gainfully employed; we are all very happy about that.
I famously described Josh, the staff member that I mentioned who recently left, as the most popular member of the Pettersson office. I have already noticed fewer visitors to my office. If anyone wants to change that trend, I am happy to have visitors at any time. I also got to witness a bit of a Mexican stand-off in the office in the past few weeks, because Josh’s desk has been sitting empty and other staff members have been eyeing each other off as to who is going to claim Josh’s desk. When you do swing by, make sure you check out who has claimed Josh’s desk. You might be surprised!
As Mark did in his speech, I want to think of some colleagues that are not with us. Whilst I am very excited to make new friends and develop new relationships with our recently elected colleagues, there is something quite sad about not being joined by those that you were so close to. I say to my former Labor colleagues—Gordon, Deepak and Bec—that I miss you already. I say to my former colleagues across the aisle—Andrew, Candice and James—that it is a different place without you here. Personally, I will miss Bec a lot. The back corner will not be quite the same. Bec was always good at making the maybe less than exciting proceedings of this place a little bit more fun with an inappropriate joke that, thankfully, the microphones could never pick up.
In closing, I want to thank the voters of Yerrabi for once again placing their trust in me. It is the greatest honour of my life to serve and represent them and their interests, and I look forward to doing that in the next four years.
Valedictory
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra—Assistant Minister for Economic Development, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Business and Better Regulation, Minister for Human Rights and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (4.23): As has already been said, there is always room for more thanks. In speaking in this place for the last time in the year that was 2020, it seems fitting to do just that.
Thank you to the people of Ginninderra. It remains enormously humbling to be a representative of the home that I love so much, in the city that I love so much. I know just how lucky I am. Just under four years ago, I promised to be committed, available and accessible, to be energetic, hardworking and to get things done, and I reaffirm that here today.
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