Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Welcome, Prime Minister, to the Australian parliament. This is not how it usually looks. This looks more like the House of Commons. We get a small taste of how parliamentary question time is for the British House of Commons when we have these joint sittings and it is crowded to the gills. The British parliament is the greatest institution of accountability in the world and the greatest historical parliament. I welcome Mrs Blair as well. It is always delightful to see you here in Australia.

Prime Minister, since we first met three decades ago, I have admired your ability to put values at the centre of your public life as well as your personal life. I respect that profoundly. Your love for your family is an example for all of us who know only too well the pressures of public office on family life. But you have never confined your values just to your personal life, you brought them to government: fairness for all; spreading opportunity; breaking the cycle of disadvantage that so many people experience even in wealthy nations like ours; putting extreme poverty on the international agenda with your passionate appeal to all nations to make poverty history—there is no other major leader in world politics who so profoundly believes in that and is so vigorously arguing for it; harnessing economic prosperity to build a fair and just society; equity in education and health; investment in training and skills; fairness and balance in the workplace; showing global leadership against the threat of climate change; tireless efforts in Northern Ireland and as head of the EU which remain an inspiration to all of us seeking peace, particularly that; the courage to do more than anyone else has since the creation of a free state in Ireland to bring to an end that bitter dispute; your preparedness to make atonement to the Irish people for errors committed in the past and your determination to finally bring that struggle to an end—we in this country have many people of Irish descent and that has been a source of enormous satisfaction for them; rebuilding, strengthening and bolstering British institutions, not undermining them; and respecting Western traditions like ministerial accountability.

You understand the inalienable values that sit at the heart of the choices that all governments make and that the central task of leadership is to give practical expression to our shared sense of humanity and community. Who among us can forget your inspirational leadership and personal courage in the aftermath of those despicable attacks recently in London? It meant a lot to Australians. I was not surprised, when those bombs went off in London, how personally most Australians felt them. You cannot kill 50 people in London without killing an Australian.

When you vowed that Britain would not yield to terrorists and that British values would prevail, we thought you spoke for all of us. Prime Minister, we stand shoulder to shoulder with you and with Britain in the war against fundamentalist terror. It is a long and complex war, and disagreements will arise on where priorities lie. As you would know, on Iraq my party and I take a different position from your government. But that does not diminish our regard for your leadership or our commitment to this long struggle against terror—far from it.

Our historic friendship allows us to agree on values and to disagree on policies. It allows us to respect enormously the fighting character of British servicemen, as the Prime Minister referred to—the most courageous servicemen in defence anywhere and among the most effective soldiers in the world, with years of experience in upholding a government determined to pursue values which are universal, beyond simply British interests.

Prime Minister, you have always engaged in public life and public debate with passion, depth, courage and vigour. Long may these qualities endure in our nations and in our great parliaments—yours in Westminster and ours in Canberra, who learned our style, our substance and our structure from the mother of all parliaments.

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