Page 5312 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 29 November 2017
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design that will work for everyone. And a modern outdoor fitness trail is now open on Alexandrina Drive in Yarralumla. I must confess that I have not used it yet, but it may well factor in my new year’s resolutions.
The budget also funded initiatives to benefit Kurrajong, including, among other things, a new green rapid bus route from the city to Woden via Manuka and Barton, which has proven very popular. Indeed, I am advised by Minister Fitzharris’s office that the service has already reported more than 81,000 boardings up to yesterday, with almost 14,000 additional boardings for the new half-hourly weekend service. There are more front-line firefighters, including a second crew for the Ainslie Fire & Rescue station, and there is early planning for a new health centre in the inner north.
I am also very proud that something else I campaigned on, Neuromoves, has received $300,000 to assist Canberrans with conditions like spinal cord injury, acquired brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease and cerebral palsy. I have stayed in touch with the new organisation, Spinal ACT, and look forward to visiting the facility in the next few months.
I turn now to the traditional end-of-year thankyous: first to my constituents, who raise a range of interesting and important issues with me and who I am very proud to represent in this place.
To my friends in the Labor Party and the union movement, ongoing engagement with union colleagues is a key part of my job across a range of issues but particularly in the work safety and IR portfolio. I thank them for their advocacy on behalf of their members and for workers across Canberra. We may not always agree, but I always appreciate their frank assessments of my performance.
Thank you to my staff for their good humour, hard work and commitment—especially on sitting week Tuesdays, when I suddenly think of half a dozen things we really should have done to prepare for the week. I would like to thank the directorate staff who support my ministerial portfolios, including our hardworking DLOs.
As always, I pay particular tribute to those who work on the front line of child protection and youth justice, some of the toughest jobs in government. Just last week members may have read about a couple who were convicted of shocking neglect of a baby. Child protection workers saved that child’s life, something they do on a regular basis.
I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge Bronwen Overton-Clarke, who will shortly retire after many years of service to the ACT public. Bronwen was one of my bosses when I worked at what was then the ACT Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services. She was, and is, the consummate public servant. Bronwen is a person of great integrity, heart and humour, a person who does serious work with seemingly endless positivity. Although we have only worked together on a small number of issues over the last year, Bronwen has been unfailingly thoughtful in the advice she has provided. I wish her all the very best for a long and enjoyable retirement.
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