ALECOMM

"Tribute to Annette Gallard"

Details

Category: Uncategorised

Created: Saturday, 13 August 2011 23:30

Written by Alecomm2

Ms PRU GOWARD (Goulburn—Minister for Family and Community Services, and Minister for Women) [3.13 p.m.]: Today I pay tribute to a remarkable executive and leader, Ms Annette Gallard, who has just marked the end of an outstanding career in public service and joins us today. Annette, as many members will know, has retired from heading up the Community Services division where she served as the chief executive for several years. Over the first few months and since I took on the Family and Community Services portfolio, Annette has given a rookie invaluable counsel and guidance through the many details of policy and operational complexity. Whenever I sought Annette's frank advice, I always received equally clear and frank answers always marked by her professionalism and commitment to the highest standards of public service.

Annette Gallard certainly is someone who has touched the lives of many people through her long career with us. I have witnessed firsthand the loyalty and affection of her staff, their capacity to joke with her and for her to joke back. She is greatly respected across the government and non-government sectors. Representatives such as Andrew McCallum from ACWA, Bill Pritchard from AbSec and Rita Fenech from Connecting Carers have spoken of their regard for Annette and paid tribute to her abilities and character, even in the midst of tough negotiations. Throughout her career Annette Gallard has made it her passion to manage organisational and cultural change with her exemplary ability to understand the impact of change on the people most directly affected. There certainly has been no shortage of change for her to grapple with, stretching right back to the Fahey Government and including the most recent, highly significant changes brought about following the Special Commission of Inquiry into Child Protection. Annette received her initial qualifications in social studies and commerce—the dark arts of economics were to come later. Of course, that led her to work in the housing field, eventually becoming Manager of the Community Housing Unit where she oversaw community and local government housing programs managed by the Department of Housing. In September 1991 Annette first began her association with Community Services when she became Manager of the Care and Protection Branch. She took on responsibility for policy and program development, quality assurance and evaluation of programs for families and children. In 1993, Annette took on the role of Project Director for Family Week, a Fahey Government initiative aimed at strengthening and supporting families. Annette was seconded to the Council on the Cost of Government in 1996 to work on the review of the management of the Department of Community Services—an excellent background for the person who would one day lead that very agency. This was one of the many experiences Annette said tested and honed her ability to look at the big picture to assess whether things were working as well as they should, or whether there were better ways of doing them.

Annette returned to Housing later in the 1990s, as a regional director and then as deputy director general, where she effectively was the head of public housing managing billions of dollars worth of assets. From September 2001 to August 2002 Annette led organisational redesign work, including implementation of a shared corporate services model across what was then the Department of Community Services, Ageing, Disability and Home Care, and Housing. Annette, as we all know, also chaired the executive steering committee for the human services chief executive officers project on better service delivery, involving no fewer than nine government departments and agencies from the non-government sector—no small task to manage such a diverse range of stakeholders, each with their own, sometimes competing, agendas. Then in October 2002 Annette came back into Community Services as the Deputy Director-General Operations leading the planning and co-ordination of the entire Operations function across eight Department of Community Services regions and the new Helpline contact centre. It was also an extremely busy and challenging time with the announcement of a range of changes to systems, processes, policies and practice. Throughout all this upheaval and change Annette led by her own wonderful example. She had extraordinary people skills and it has made all the difference during those challenges, whether she was seeing things from the perspective of front-line staff and carers, or from the point of view of non-government organisations and other groups who hold government to account. For Annette Gallard life so far has been a long and interesting journey. Like all State government agency heads, from time to time she has had to make difficult decisions. Annette has had to cut staff, programs and services to meet government imperatives from time to time. When this involves the care of our most vulnerable children or those in public housing struggling with complex problems, I have no doubt that this has been extremely painful for her. Not long after we met as Minister and Community Services head I said to Annette, "Have you ever wondered how you began as someone who just wanted to do good for children but ended up as someone who has to focus on money instead?" Annette replied, as she should have, "I have never stopped fighting for children". In my experience, Annette has never resiled, whatever the pressure, from the fundamental commitment to the vulnerable and disadvantaged. At a time when so much is demanded of limited resources in government, the need is always to balance those resources with the best outcomes for children and families. That is why it has been so important to have someone with Annette's experience and values to bring balance to otherwise tough debates.

Importantly, Annette has also been a truly inspiring role model for women—as a professional, as a leader, as a mother, as a woman who has risen above life challenges to reach this outstanding level of achievement. Annette, I congratulate you. Everyone in the Government thanks you and wishes you well in your retirement. We thank you and wish you and your family the best. We will now give you back to your family; I know there would have been over years and years times when your family would have felt they came second. But you now have many wonderful days ahead, and they can have you back. We thank you for what you have done for the children and young people of this State.

Ms LINDA BURNEY (Canterbury) [3.20 p.m.]: It is with great pleasure that I add my tribute to that of Minister Goward on Annette Gallard, former Chief Executive of the Department of Family and Community Services. My statement to you, Annette, and to this House is from myself but also on behalf of Barbara Perry, the shadow Minister. Barbara had a family emergency today, but she wished me to pass on her deep feelings of gratitude and respect to you. Annette Gallard has many attributes, and the Minister has outlined those. But in my reflections in respect of Annette I want to talk about her quiet leadership. There are many styles of leadership, some demonstrated by many of us in different ways. But quiet leadership is a particular leadership that brings other people with you, leadership that is determined, leadership that is reflective, and leadership that is intelligent. Annette Gallard demonstrates all of those qualities in her quiet leadership.

I know Annette personally, and worked with her during my tenure as Minister for Community Services. As the Minister said, it was a time of great change and great development, enormous excitement, with enormous trepidation for the Department of Community Services. Under Annette's leadership we saw enormous change in the way in which the most vulnerable in New South Wales are dealt with by the State. Annette Gallard is enormously professional and highly competent. She understood and managed her area of community services not just with consummate skill but with consummate passion and consummate care, because from the deliberations that we had I think she understood better than anyone what our decisions meant for the lives of thousands of children and thousands of families in New South Wales.

Annette and I started to work together just before Justice James Wood handed down the report on his inquiry into child protection in New South Wales. Annette's tremendous commitment and passion for children and their welfare and wellbeing saw us implement those commitments and those recommendations in a way that was about the children and not about the Government, in a way that was overwhelmingly about the family and not those who ran the services. She wholeheartedly defended the interests of children, and I think that is the mark of Annette Gallard. Annette Gallard is also unfailingly gracious, diplomatic, warm and intelligent. She is a person and a professional and an absolute delight to work with. For my part, as I hear from Minister Goward as well, the respect that Annette gained on both sides of this House will travel with her well and forever. This was not because she had to do it; it was because of the sort of person that she is. Annette believed in what she did, she believed in her staff, and she believed most deeply that every child deserves the best chance possible in life. I recall well, when I was Minister and worked with Annette, that when I had an idea that I thought was a very good idea, Annette would say, "Well, Minister, what you want might be very, very good, but it also might be difficult to achieve." If she said that, you knew that it was probably not achievable. I will not run through Annette's history; the Minister has already done that. Annette, we wish you well in your retirement. I know that you are undertaking some travel, and then I understand you are going to concentrate on gardening. Good luck with that. But what I want to say, on behalf of the Opposition, is that your commitment to the people of New South Wales, your consummate poise as a public servant, your intelligence, your quiet leadership and your compassion are qualities that we could all aspire to in this Chamber. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Annette. Good Luck. On behalf of the New South Wales Opposition, have a great retirement—because I tell you what, mate, you have earned it.  ^{_{(Source : http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20110804018?open&refNavID=HA8_1)}}