Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Technology and the Future of Work) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise to pay tribute to the people of Hotham, who I have this incredible privilege of speaking for in this chamber. These last few months have been hard. They've been really, really hard. COVID has fundamentally affected the life of every single person that I speak for in this chamber. I look across my electorate and I feel so genuinely humbled by the way in which households and families have dealt with the challenges that have been put in front of them in this last period.

Hotham has a very large number of people in the frontline battle against COVID—whether you're one of our healthcare heroes working at Monash Health; whether you're one of our world-beating scientists working on a COVID vaccine at the CSIRO; whether you're an aged-care worker supporting vulnerable residents from Mulgrave to Springvale; whether you're a retail worker who's kept my electorate with food on the table stacking shelves at Oakleigh South or Clayton; whether you're an educator at one of our truly outstanding local schools; or whether you're a good neighbour, as so many of the people I represent are, and you've been using this period to look out for the people around you, I want to say thank you. We owe you a debt of gratitude that the nation will truly never be able to repay. The people of my electorate have made a huge sacrifice, and I hope that I speak on behalf of the whole chamber when I say that Australians thank you, and they won't forget all the hard work that you've put into this enormous effort.