Andrew Leigh

PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

 MONDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2016

It is traditional at this time of year to acknowledge the many thousands of people who make the work of parliamentarians possible: the cleaners, the security guards, the Hansard operators, the library staff and, of course, our personal staff. But I want to acknowledge in particular a group of people for whom the next couple of months will be particularly challenging, and they are the staff at IHG. IHG recently was unsuccessful in renewing its contract for parliamentary catering and, as a result, most of the IHG staff in this building will not be here when parliament resumes next year.

I want to acknowledge in particular a group of managers: Timothy Stephens, Elushka Scheumann, Elizabeth Notting, Tun Disthabanchong, Clinton Day, Nathan Cooper, Yunari Heinze, Joy Lin, Ali Mazari and Marc van der Meer. Their professionalism is extraordinary. The smiles that they have on their faces as they look after us and keep us so well fed and watered in this place is extraordinary. We will miss each of them individually and the many other staff who I have not had the time to name here today. We thank them for their service, for helping us do our jobs a little better, and we wish each of them their best in their future careers. We know they will do well, and we thank them for their service to the parliament.