Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Reflecting on my remarks from last year, I thought 2020 was a bin fire, but 2021 has trumped it. We need a bigger bin for it to get in. It was another tumultuous year for our country and for the world. On behalf of the Australian Greens, I express love and support to all Australians who have suffered this year. I commend all the remarks that have been made and associate myself with them. I will start by thanking the staff in this building and those who work in electorate offices. For us they are the backbone of how we do our work, and it's absolutely critical we make sure that this is a safe workplace for them which they can be proud of and continue to want to work in.

It has been a year of reckoning, with the brave disclosures of women like Brittany Higgins and Rachelle Miller being the catalysts for so many other stories told. The Set the standard report released this week is a line in the sand that we cannot turn away from. We must seize the opportunity to make this place better, to set that standard that the community demands and to live up to it. I look forward to working with everyone in this place to implement the Jenkins recommendations in full.

To the formalities here in parliament, we farewelled former president Scott Ryan. I place on record our thanks for the work that he did keeping the chamber functioning during the pandemic. We also welcome the new President to the role, and I think he has well and truly been initiated in these last few weeks—let's hope, anyway. Let's hope that everything is different next year and that everybody is happy and well. I extend the Greens' thanks to the Clerk, Richard Pye, the Deputy Clerk, Jackie Morris, and to everyone at the Table Office and the Procedure Office. To those in the drafting office, I thank you for working so hard for us Greens and for us all. To the Senate staff, the wonderful attendants and to Adrienne, who is retiring after so many years in this place, thank you for all of the water. I, too, look forward to using normal glasses again in future.

I thank the Parliamentary Budget Office—in a re-election year, we've kept them very busy, as I'm sure you all have. I thank the Parliamentary Library staff, who do excellent research work and always answer our tricky questions. I thank the COMCAR drivers, the security guards, the baristas, the cleaners, the early childhood educators, the chefs at the trough and the gardeners. I thank the Department of Parliamentary Services staff for all the service that you give us, morning, noon and night. I thank the IT teams for keeping democracy functioning in a pandemic, particularly during the innumerable sittings, meetings, and estimates and committee hearings. I had to hold up a note only once to say that I couldn't hear, and that's not a bad record. Remote parliament has provided some important flexibility which I think we could all carry forward, and it has also helped to personalise the experience in some ways, as pets and kids and all sorts of things popped up in the backgrounds. No-one was a cat, so I guess we can call that a win! I hope that this parliament can use the success of the past 18 months to start looking at ways to encourage the greater participation and diverse representation that remote parliament could provide.

To all my colleagues in this place, I thank you for your commitment to try to make the world a better place, even though we disagree on how that should happen. I acknowledge your commitment in performing these roles. It is not easy on us or our families, so I thank you for doing it. Thank you to all the citizens in our electorate who contact with us stories. It's critical that we remain connected with the community and the people we represent. To my wonderful staff, I'm eternally grateful for your support. To all of my Greens Senate team, you are amazing, dedicated people—they are, clearly, not here because they're already on their way home after an enormous year they have all worked so hard on. I acknowledge that this year we farewelled the indefatigable Rachel Siewert, whom we dearly miss. We know she's very happy in her new role, but the place is different without her. In her stead we have the wonderful Dorinda Cox, who has already made such an impact, and it's a testimony to what she brings to this place that we already have an inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women.

Rach, of course, left the task of Greens Whip open, and I acknowledge Senator McKim, who has taken on that task—and I suspect he's regretting that decision; however, it's too late now!

I'm very much looking forward to getting home to my kids, as I'm sure we all are. Please look after yourselves over the holiday break. See you all next year.