Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 4353 ..


Clauses 15 to 21, as amended, agreed to.

Remainder of bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Occupational health and safety awards

Ms MacDonald, pursuant to standing order 128, fixed a future day for the moving of the motion.

Mr Noel Phillip Cheney-award

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (5.14): I move:

That this Assembly gives its congratulations to Mr Noel Phillip (Phil) Cheney for being awarded the NW Jolly Medal, the highest honour of the Institute of Foresters Australia, and commends Mr Cheney on his contribution to the ACT in the area of bushfire behaviour and management.

Mr Speaker, standing in my name on the notice paper is a motion concerning one Noel Phillip Cheney. He would be very upset if he ever heard you call him Phillip because Phil Cheney is a very ordinary Australian, a very ordinary Canberran, who goes about his job in the most exemplary way.

Phil's years of support to the forestry industry of Australia and to forests around the world is to be recognised tomorrow evening when he receives the NW Jolly Medal. The NW Jolly Medal is awarded by the Institute of Foresters of Australia, and the citation of the award will read:

Awarded as the Institute's highest and most prestigious honour for outstanding service to the profession of forestry in Australia.

Mr Speaker, Phil Cheney became a forester in 1963, and so 40 years later in 2003 his profession is to recognise a man who in that 40 years has been a student, forester, teacher, researcher, author, lecturer, firefighter, adviser and scientist. He even managed to find time to become a husband to Cynthia and a father to three children as well as remain a very active member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia.

It is interesting to reflect on his history, because this is a man who, although born in Ballarat, moved to Canberra where he received in 1963 a Diploma in Forestry from the former Australian Forestry School. From there he has just gone to what can only be described as lofty heights. In 1963 he was a forestry officer grade 1. He is a man who started at the bottom and worked his way up. He worked at the Forestry Research Institute and his first project was to establish a watershed research subsection and carry out research into stream turbidity and sediment sources in the forested catchments providing Canberra's water.


Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .