King Annette: Motions — Clerk of the House of Representatives—RetirementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Motions — Clerk of the House of Representatives—Retirement[Sitting date: 01 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:4971. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I am pleased on behalf of the Labour Opposition to support the Prime Minister’s motion on the retirement of Mary Harris Clerk of the House. Thank you Mary for your years of service to our Parliament—28 of them starting in 1987. Your experience as the Prime Minister said has been in most sections of the Office of the Clerk from the Hansard Office to select committees to the Deputy Clerk of the House and then 7 years as the Clerk. Some of us were here under the previous Clerk Dave McGee who was considered the foremost authority on the workings of a Westminster parliament. They were always going to be big shoes to fill Mary but you have filled those shoes and perhaps your preparation for facing the googlies of this place came from the fact that you were in the 1982 Women’s Cricket World Cup averaging 41 runs in that match against our old adversary Australia. I am told that Mary is a right-handed batswoman and that is the only time that she has shown preference between the right and the left.Mary is our first woman Clerk and our first non-lawyer as a Clerk and she has led the House through a great period of change particularly technological change with the e-committees. Some of us are still getting to grips with those changes Mary. She embraced change but not at the expense of Parliament’s enduring values. She has shown a strong commitment to finding new ways for Parliament to be open and accessible to the people who elect it and we are the better for it. With Mary’s guidance there have been some important changes in the procedures for the smooth running of the House such as extended sittings. Under her leadership the Office of the Clerk has been described as a “little gem”—I think that is probably a pretty good description of Mary herself actually.MPs have come to regard her as an impeccable and impartial source of advice and like her predecessor she too is now widely respected in Parliaments around the world. For example Westminster the home of our type of parliament sought her opinion on their governance arrangements earlier this year. An attribute so important in a Clerk is to have a phenomenal recall of long-forgotten Standing Orders Speakers’ rulings and the House proceedings and Mary has that recall matched only by our Trev. Her patience is legendary and it was hugely tested during the drama of the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill which saw the tabling of over 30000 amendments mostly from Labour and mostly I have to say proved to be right. Nine hundred and sixty-two of those amendments were voted on with all the work that the Clerk’s Office and Mary put into that. Another less-known attribute is her ability to cover the distance between her office and the Chamber at breakneck speed in a gown and high-heeled shoes at the sign of any meltdown by members of this House.In 2013 Mary was awarded the Companion of the Queen’s Service Order for services to Parliament which was so richly deserved. It has been a privilege to work with you Mary. We thank you and we wish you the best in the next stage of your full and interesting life. There is life after Parliament—I have just seen Eric Roy and he is 14 kilograms lighter. So you can look forward to fishing cycling whatever comes your way but we thank you very much for the service you have given us.