Constituent, naval service, Telecom, magistrates court, Doodles, Brothers, cancer, family, Sanderson High School, principal, education, innovation, vertical timetable, pastoral care.
Dr RAHMAN (Fong Lim): Madam Speaker, one of the bittersweet aspects of being a constituency MP is having the opportunity to share in the passing of community members. Tonight I also pay tribute to a great Territorian whose funeral I attended in January alongside colleagues: Susan Bridget Kelleher. She was a deeply respected constituent of mine from the Narrows whose life was marked by service, faith, kindness and unwavering commitment to community.
Sue Ahmat was born on 26 June 1951 in Cooma, New South Wales to Christopher Kelleher and Elizabeth Kelleher. She was the second eldest of 10 children raised in a large Catholic family with strong values of faith, responsibility and care for others instilled from an early age.
In 1969 she began her military service when she joined the Royal Australian Navy as a radio operator. In 1972 she was posted to Darwin, which would become her lifelong home. Although adapting to the Territory climate was not without its challenges, Sue embraced life in the Top End and fully committed herself to the community she would come to love.
After seven years of naval service, Sue continued her career of service with Telecom, now Telstra, where she worked across a number of roles, including as an operator, trainer, supervisor and manager. She was known for her professionalism and leadership. She built lasting relationships with all her colleagues throughout her career.
Many people came to know her from 2001 onwards when she commenced the next chapter of her service with the Darwin Magistrates Court where over nearly 15 years she was a fixture holding a number of positions before becoming a manager. Her work within the justice system reflected her strong sense of integrity, compassion and dedication to supporting others.
Sue’s commitment to the NT extended well beyond her professional life. Alongside her husband, Frank ‘Doodles’ Ahmat—recently awarded an OAM—she played a vital role in supporting local sporting clubs, including the Darwin Brothers Rugby League Football Club and the Darwin Buffaloes Football Club.
Whilst Frank is the one who was often seen in leadership roles by many of us, Sue was a quiet driving force behind the scenes for an awful lot of this activity, organising, supporting families new to Darwin and ensuring that young players felt welcome, supported and cared for.
Family was at the heart of Sue’s life. If you were at her memorial at St Mary’s Cathedral that was evident by the abundance and preponderance of family across many generations. She was a devoted wife, a loving mother to three children and a proud grandmother to five grandchildren, each of whom, no doubt, also held a special place in her heart.
Sue was known for her generosity, hospitality and ability to make people feel included and valued, expressed often through her love of cooking and her warm, welcoming home. Many people referred to their fond memories of spending time in that home which, again, is an iconic spot in the Narrows.
In the last years Sue faced significant health challenges, including multiple cancer diagnoses. Throughout her long and courageous journey she displayed strength, grace and gratitude. Those who cared for her at the Alan Walker Cancer Care Centre—who also attended the memorial service in large numbers—spoke of not only her resilience but also her kindness as a person who knew staff by name, asked after their families and expressed genuine appreciation for their care.
Even in her final days, Sue remained a thoughtful, sharp and deeply thankful person. She met everyone with great warmth and dignity, leaving a lasting impression on everyone who was fortunate to know her.
The life of Susan Kelleher, later Sue Ahmat, was one of service to her country, profession, community and, most of all, her family. Her contribution to the NT, though often quiet and behind the scenes, was significant and enduring. That is why I wanted to pay tribute to her.
I extend my deepest sympathies to Sue’s family and loved ones. I hope they will find comfort in the knowledge that her life made a lasting difference and that the legacy of her kindness, service and community spirit will not be forgotten.
Vale, Sue Ahmat.
It would be remiss not to mention that on the same day I attended that funeral I also attended the funeral of Warren Bury, one of the Northern Territory’s great educators. It is something of a disservice not to speak in detail forensically of his many achievements. He was not a constituent of mine, but he was in fact my first school principal and the foundational school principal at Sanderson High School between 1985 and 1992.
There are so many things that could be said for Warren Bury, but part of why I wanted to mention him was that he was a true innovator in education. He was hand-picked for that job at Sanderson High School, and I was the beneficiary of his innovation in that time. It was a school that performed out of its socks and was looked to by other schools not just locally but internationally for its vanguard approach to education.
I am delighted that our government is making strides to make sure middle schools go back to being meaningful comprehensive schools in this coming year. Likewise, I am delighted that we are, after many years, paying attention to fundamentals in education with a view to improving literacy, numeracy and attendance.
From time to time, we also should have a mind to innovation in education, because there was a great time in the Northern Territory when our public school system was the envy of the rest of the country in many regards. It was pound for pound proportionally better funded and punched above its weight relative to our interstate counterparts. People here got phenomenal educations for next to nothing in the past, and that came down to the hard graft, thinking and commitment of people like Warren Bury.
While I could have gone through his litany of achievements educationally, after his time at Sanderson High School he served in positions of higher stature and prominence here and in the United Kingdom throughout the greater London public school system. I wanted to draw attention to him specifically because innovation in education is something that we will need going forward if we want to see better educational outcomes and if we want more kids in senior secondary school finishing in the top 20 students at the end of the year again.
It is great that we have great private educational options in the Northern Territory now, but if we want great ones in public education we will need more Warren Burys going forward. When I say innovation, there are specific things I am talking about. Sanderson High School had a vertical timetable, which in the past essentially mirrored providing students with the kind of options and opportunity that people often only get in elite private schools or later in university curriculum. It meant that people in Years 8, 9 and 10 were all in classes together, meeting each other at their skill levels and focusing on components of education that were most important to them. It meant that people could specialise within a system and an ecosystem that supported them to cut across grades, cut across people and, essentially, not be put in a box.
There was also the advent at that school of pastoral care groups creating permanent home rooms for people to move through the educational system so that people always had mentors, systems, buddies and peers throughout their educational life. To this day, I am friends with people who were in my pastoral care group and the teacher who looked after our group, who I still have dinner with once in a while. It was a great system.
Even within the school system Warren Bury had the novel idea to make all teachers use some of their dedicated time not as an optional extra but as a compulsion to participate in something called consultancy. Essentially people across all areas and faculties would be forced to use one of their lines to meet their peers, break bread and learn what was happening in the maths, PE or English departments rather than operating in tribal silos. It was a phenomenal time at that school, and it was an era of great educational innovation.
To Warren Bury’s partner, Jennifer; his daughters, Sharyn, Melissa and Rachel; his sons-in-law, Andrew, Darren and Simon; and grandchildren, Jasmine, Jack, Summer and Chloe, I offer my sincere condolences. Warren Bury lived a life of great service and purpose, and it was indeed a privilege to share in his celebration of life and to know of his many achievements.
Vale, Warren Bury.