Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

It has been a big year in 2025, and I want to thank the people of my electorate of Blaxland for putting their trust in me again. It's the privilege of my life to represent our community in this place. I take the opportunity to thank them for their support, and, in particular, I thank the hundreds and hundreds of people who volunteered on my election campaign. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. In particular, I want to thank my team led by Korena Flanagan, Chris Zogopoulos and Christine Kalivitis for all of their help over almost 18 years now. In the case of Chris, it's even longer. I would not be here without you.

This has been a year of wins. We've fixed the funding of public schools, cut student debt by 20 per cent and, in my local community after 12 months of hard work, we got Auburn Post Office back and reopened. But it's also been a year of losses in my community. We've lost some local Labor true believers, some dear friends of mine—Tony Re, a former school principal; Grant Lee, a former mayor of Bankstown; Uncle Rex Sorby, a great Indigenous elder; and Vanessa McNeill, a former Holroyd councillor. Local legend Laurie Ferguson, a former member of this place, has been really unwell and is still in hospital. Laurie, we're all here with you, Maureen and the whole family.

I wish everybody here a very, very merry Christmas. This is a time that we spend with the most important people in the world—our families, our kids and our mates. Every year, on the Sunday before Christmas, I get together with the fellas that I played cricket with for years. We call it clay day, for reasons that I don't have time to explain here. We catch up, reminisce, talk about the old days and remember just how important we are to each other. To quote that old Irish proverb, 'We live in the shade of each other.' When I get together with my mates, I live in their shade for sure. So I give them a quick shout-out—Gav, Macca, Corz, Squirmer, Welster, Wyber, Bevo, Blobby, Beachie, Rinny, Choppers, George, Tink, Bert and Herbie. Merry Christmas, boys.

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