Fond farewell from Waldron

Member for Wagin Terry Waldron made his valedictory speech to Parliament last Wednesday night as he heads towards retirement after the March State election.

Mr Waldron said he spoke fondly of his 16 years representing WA.

“I talked very much about the area I’ve represented and this region and I talked a lot about the positive future of agriculture, but mainly I talked about the people of the region,” he said. “I’ve found in my 16 years of being the local member that we’ve got great people here.

“I also talked about my time as a minister, which I’m very proud of and particularly in sport and recreation I was able to deliver a lot of facilities not just in Perth but right across the State.

“I actually cited the benefit of small facilities in country WA and I quoted the Pingrup courts we did a few years ago.

“When people said there wasn’t enough kids, my answer was why shouldn’t the kids of Pingrup have netball, basketball and tennis courts to play on? And we got the funding and local young women out there really drove me on that.”

He also spoke highly of his home town of Jingalup and how his school colours of purple and gold were pivotal in the creation of the Fremantle Dockers guernseys.

“When I was working at the WA Football Commission, a friend of mine was in charge of picking the colours and they had consultants and focus groups and I used to say: ‘No, just make it purple and gold like Jingalup.’” he said.

“Then the night that they launched the Dockers colours, they had all this smoke and when the players came out I saw all the purple and I thought: ‘Hell, he’s done it. He just couldn’t get the gold in.’”