Page 579 - Week 02 - Thursday, 18 February 2016
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I will continue to work as a member of my new community on Lake Macquarie, to get involved and achieve positive outcomes. It has been really a great honour to be here. As I said at the outset, Madam Speaker, I am proud to be able to stand in this place and address this Assembly today, standing beside my colleagues in the Labor Party and with all of you here.
I thank the people of Ginninderra lastly for the confidence they have shown in me. I undertook to represent them in the Assembly to the best of my ability. I trust I have fulfilled that promise. Canberra has a great future ahead of it under this Labor government. I look forward to seeing the news about the election of the next one in October 2016. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Tourism and Events and Minister for Urban Renewal): I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave granted.
MR BARR: Today is the end of an era for the Assembly. We have just heard from Ms Porter as to why she was involved in politics and what motivated all of her actions as a member of this place. As always in Mary’s speeches, she gave us food for thought for the future. I would like to take the opportunity this morning, whilst Mary hands in her resignation as Deputy Speaker, to pay tribute to her contribution through everything that she has delivered for the people of Canberra, particularly her electorate of Ginninderra, for the Australian Labor Party and for the broader community. As we have heard, Mary’s commitment to social progress far pre-dates her election to this place in 2004.
Mary and I share a number of things in common, but one of them is that we both moved to Canberra in 1977. Mary came here, as we have heard, after an extended period in the Northern Territory. She came here with a passion for community participation and she was determined in her new home town of Canberra to become incredibly involved in her community. It drove her to establish and manage Communities@Work in Tuggeranong and to establish Volunteering ACT, where she became CEO before her 2004 election to this Assembly. We both ran for this Assembly in 2004. Mary was successful initially and since becoming an MLA she has been a proud and persistent advocate for her community. Frankly, I think we would all acknowledge we would be hard pressed to find a resident in Ginninderra who has not met Mary at one of her mobile offices over the years at a community event or in some walk of life here in this city.
A mark of any good representative is to be able to listen more than they speak. Some of us struggle with that concept, but I know Mary is one who would always be a good listener, and constituents have always felt that they would be heard by Mary. And there is no doubt that her electoral success over the years also shows the strength of her grassroots involvement with the community and also her engagement in this place.
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