Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—As a member of the Parliamentary Standards Committee I too want to acknowledge what's gone into this work. Given that the chair has outlined the work, I won't go back over that. But I would like, in this instance, to acknowledge the work of the chair. The chair has recognised that there was a power of work done on this and it was intense. The reflection of the consensus that was reached is, in great part, due to the work of the chair, and I thank and commend her for that work. I also acknowledge that this is a very important report. All of us who are part of that committee were certainly impacted by the evidence that we received in its various forms.

I really want to thank all of the witnesses and those who gave evidence, in any form and any submitter, for the courage they had to report to us and give us the information that we needed to come to this report and the recommendations in it. It wasn't easy for those people, at all, and we understood that, I think, as a committee. There was a very compassionate approach to the work that we undertook and an understanding of the people that we were meeting. A safe and respective workplace is certainly something that we all supported and endorsed through this report.

I also want to thank everyone who was involved in this for the amount of work involved—and I think none of us underestimate what was involved—and the work that was done to establish the code itself. I want to thank everyone who was part of this, not just the chair but the deputy chair as well, Marise Payne, who did an extraordinary amount of work. None of us would underestimate the amount of work done by the deputy chair. I want to thank each of the committee members and acknowledge the amount of work, dedication and commitment they put in to get this right and to work with each other to do so. So to the other members present, I thank each of you as well for your willingness to engage and come to the best outcome that we could possibly get, one about clarity and safe and respectful workplaces through the code itself.

The witnesses and submitters, I have thanked. The secretariat also had a very intense process to deal with and much was required of them, particularly in the latter parts, as we were bringing this together. I also really appreciated, as other members did, the advice we received from other jurisdictions that sought to introduce codes themselves. I found that invaluable, in my deliberations and consideration of this work.

This is a significant piece of work and I really wanted to acknowledge and thank all of my colleagues and everyone who's been part of this from the beginning until this point. I thank the chair, in particular, for the work that she's done in this process.

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