Page 4823 - Week 13 - Thursday, 28 November 2019
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I would like to thank all the members of the Assembly, my colleagues, for welcoming me to this Assembly and making me very comfortable. I am really grateful to you all. I also thank my staff; in a very short time they have given me great support.
I wish you all a very happy and festive season, and please stay safe.
Valedictory
MS ORR (Yerrabi—Minister for Community Services and Facilities, Minister for Disability, Minister for Employment and Workplace Safety and Minister for Government Services and Procurement) (6.25): I rise in this last adjournment debate of the sitting year to reflect on some of the highlights of 2019 as the member for Yerrabi.
As a government, we have committed to and delivered significant investments for the people of Yerrabi. We started the year with the opening of Margaret Hendry School in Taylor, which has been warmly embraced by the community and is providing world-class education to Gungahlin students. We delivered light rail in April this year, and the Yerrabi community have quickly come to love it. Light rail stage 1 has transformed the way our local community moves around this city and I look forward to the delivery of stage 2 and beyond.
On an environmental note, I would like to acknowledge Frankies at Forde, Sunday in Canberra and Atlas for supporting my proposal for a reusable cup zone to be launched in Gungahlin. The government has responded and will be rolling out this scheme in the very near future, which will assist in reducing waste and the impact it has on our city.
Our local environmental groups play a huge role in protecting our natural environment. To Geoff Robertson and the entire Friends of Grasslands team, thank you for your work in protecting our precious grasslands and supporting the Franklin grasslands to become a protected nature reserve. To the Giralang Pond Landcare group and retiring president Denise Kay, thank you for the hard work you all do in ensuring that the local Giralang and Kaleen waterways stay healthy and enjoyable for our entire community.
I would like to thank Kelli Donovan and Nina Gbor, whom I partnered with earlier this year to start the conversation on textile recycling and reducing the waste associated with the textile industry.
It has been an honour to have served as a minister in this government since August. Across my portfolio responsibilities of community services and facilities, disability, employment and workplace safety and government services and procurement, I have been working with stakeholder groups and the community to ensure that we are improving service delivery and achieving better outcomes for all Canberrans.
In the area of employment and workplace safety, I am pleased to have passed the Work Health and Safety Amendment Bill in the last sitting period, which commenced the process to establish a new and more independent WorkSafe ACT. The new
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