Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I knew that would get the opposition going—Bob Donnelly, the state secretary of the CEPU, John Camillo from the AMWU and Jamie Newland from the Maritime Union of Australia. I also have to thank the NUW. All those unions helped with my campaign. I am very proud to have their help and I have always been proud to be a unionist. I think it is a good thing.

I also thank my campaign team and, in particular, my campaign manager, Aemon Bourke. Aemon was a particularly committed campaign manager. He has always been a great friend and I really do appreciate all the hard work that he did. He and his wife Emily, who was Amanda Rishworth’s campaign manager, are now having twins, so I do not think either of them will be working terribly hard on a campaign in the future; they will be working on their family and I wish them well with that.

I also thank Josh Peak and Tom Carrick-Smith. I thank my office—Mat Werfel, Rob Klose and Andrew Anson. I also thank Jess Nitschke, who has been a great help but, sadly, has left my office now. I also thank some of the people on the ground—Stephen Hollingworth, Craig Withers, Sonia Smethurst, Kym Thodey, Carmel Rosier, Brad Johnson, Brent Gorman, Graham Klose, Deb Filipone, Deralyn Mulroney, Tim Palmer, Malcolm Klose, Jenny Werfel, Alan Nelson, Robert Potter, Sean Hill, Juan Legaspi, Adam Brown, Andy Marshall, Guy Ballentyne and Susan Cunningham, from Clare, as well. I thank all those people. They have been a great help. I think all my colleagues as well. I thank the House.

See this speech in context