More duties for Walt

March 13, 2016 by J-Wire News Service
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NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel deputy chair and NSW Deputy Opposition leader in the NSW Legislative Council Mr Walt Secord has added the Shadow Minister for the Arts to his duties – in a re-shuffle of the NSW Labor Shadow Cabinet at NSW Parliament this week.

Walt Secord

Walt Secord

Mr Secord, who is a former journalist with the Australian Jewish News was also re-appointed Labor’s Shadow Health Minister and Shadow Minister for the North Coast.

The appointments were announced by NSW Labor Opposition leader, Luke Foley in a reshuffle on March 9 – prompted by NSW’s first female Aboriginal MP Linda Burney deciding to pursue a federal seat in the forthcoming national election.

As part of the reshuffle, Mr Foley appointed new shadow ministers and brought the number of female representatives on the Labor frontbench to nine.  Other appointments include Maroubra MP Michael Daley as Deputy Opposition leader in the NSW Legislative Assembly and Planning and Infrastructure and prominent high school principal and Lakemba MP Jihad Dibb as Shadow Minister for Education.

Labor Upper House MP, Ms Sophie Cotsis was re-appointed Labor’s spokesperson for Multiculturalism, who will be responsible for working with the State’s various ethnic and ethno-specific communities in the Jewish community and Upper House MP Ernest Wong was also re-appointed as shadow parliamentary secretary to the Opposition leader.

Mr Secord worked at the Australian Jewish News from 1988 to 1991 as a senior journalist.

Mr Secord has been in the NSW Parliament since May 2011. He has previously served as Shadow Minister for Water, Shadow Special Minister of State and Shadow Minister for Roads.

In 2011, Mr Secord visited Auschwitz-Birkeneau and Israel on a personal trip. A year later, he returned to Israel as part of a multi-party NSW Parliamentary delegation – sponsored by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies.

On Thursday March 10 in State Parliament, Mr Secord said: “Few members would be aware that my first university degree in Canada was a Bachelor of Arts, specialised honours in film, art history and fine arts.”

Between 2007 and 2009 he was an elected board member of the Sydney International Film Festival. 

Mr Secord added: “Life after university takes wonderful and unusual turns and I became a print journalist, a political staffer and now a parliamentarian. Regrettably, I accepted that my contact with the arts had disappeared or been delayed due to family and work commitments. However, over the past two years my love for the arts has been reignited by Sydney’s diverse theatre and opera scene. This is partly due to my partner, who studied costume design at a Moscow university and worked in professional theatre in Russia and Europe. She designed costumes for opera, and sets and costumes for many productions for state theatres.”

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