Briefings continued and Visits from the ACT

Briefings by the Public Service are key to new members gaining understanding of the operations of Government whilst giving officers themselves the opportunity to share concerns they might have and to offer potential solutions for the Assembly’s consideration. All in all a most worthwhile exercise and staff are to be complemented for their professional presentations. Clearly we underestimate the talents and skill base we have in this truly amazing community. Certainly Members now have better understanding of some of the problem areas, which require early attention – waste management and argentine ants being just two of these key areas.

We welcome to Norfolk Island this week the Hon Shane Rattenbury MLA, Speaker of the A.C.T. Legislative Assembly and Member of the A.C.T. Greens Party, who arrived Wednesday evening. Shane is here to compete in the Island’s Triathlon this weekend and we wish him well. He is taking the opportunity during his visit to explore as much of the Island as he can and to talk with a number of Island residents who share similar interests. This is Shane’s first term of office as a Member and he shared with the Chief Minister, the Acting Clerk and myself over a cup of tea some interesting snippets from his life pre politics.

“Having worked for Greenpeace for the last 10 years, I know that it is possible to make the world a better place. After gaining degrees in Economics and Law (Honours) at ANU and working for the Commonwealth Industry Department, I joined Greenpeace Australia in 1998, where I was able to campaign on local issues like preventing toxic emissions at the Totalcare Incinerator in Mitchell. In 2005, as Head of Greenpeace’s global oceans campaign, I led an expedition of two Greenpeace ships to Antarctica to confront the Japanese whaling fleet. We saved 82 whales by putting ourselves between the whales and the harpoons, and forced the whalers to return home with a reduced catch. In December 2007, as International Political Director, I led the Greenpeace delegation at the vital climate change negotiations in Bali, which successfully started the process for the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol.”.