HARRIET Shing is preparing to leave politics. Her valedictory speech to the Legislative Council on September 22 was characteristically Shing: long, lively, occasionally self-mocking and not short on opinions.

After 12 years representing Eastern Victoria, and multiple ministries, she looked back on the people, places and causes that have shaped her parliamentary career.

There were plenty of thank yous, a few digs, some very personal reflections and a spirited defence of the record of the Labor governments she served under.

Shing had a message for the current Labor leadership as it seeks to put some distance between itself and the Andrews and Allan governments: don't forget what was achieved.

“No government is perfect,” she said, “but no government gets better for being defined exclusively by what has not worked or what should not be discussed.”

She rattled off the list: level crossings removed, hospitals built, new and upgraded schools and TAFE campuses, more rail services, renewable energy and battery storage, the SEC, a ban on unconventional gas, medicinal cannabis, safe access zones for abortion care, voluntary assisted dying, the royal commissions into family violence and mental health, and the Yoorrook Justice Commission and treaty.

And then there was Wonthaggi's desalination plant – a controversial project of an earlier Labor government which, Shing pointed out, is now producing 150 gigalitres of water.

“Everybody knows how much I love to talk about the desalination plant,” she said, “which is now responsible for more than a quarter of every single glass of water that comes out of our taps across the grid.”

But the most revealing parts of the speech were personal. The first openly lesbian MP in the Victorian Parliament, Shing recalled being asked to join then premier Daniel Andrews and equality minister Martin Foley on the steps of Parliament to celebrate the 2017 marriage-equality postal vote.

“For so long I stood in this place and I bared myself to the world and I begged and I asked to be accepted for who I am,” she said. “We were finally given the opportunity to be as happy or, pending divorce proceedings, as miserable as everybody else.”

She also spoke publicly for the first time about being diagnosed with autism early in her parliamentary career.

“A lot of things started to make sense to me about why so many things did not easily make sense to me and why I found myself overwhelmed at various points by a range of different things that many people do not think twice about.”

She channelled that understanding into questions about how public policy could better accommodate neurological differences, while acknowledging how difficult it had been to navigate those needs publicly.

And then came the thank yous: to colleagues and staff, to people on the other side of politics, to community organisations and volunteers, to friends and family. 

There was a special mention for her friend, Bass MP Jordan Crugnale, for her “care, creativity, friendship and absolute unwavering sense of principle”.

Shing finished by saying she had given everything she had to the work, and had “laid my hand on it” as part of an arc that she hoped bent towards justice. Then she handed the spot to whoever comes next.

Here is Harriet Shing's full valedictory statement.