Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

Let me echo the words of the Leader of the Opposition: Australians want some very simple things from government and it is etched into our national consciousness—and that is the Australian ‘fair go’. Australians want fairness at work and fairness beyond. I agree wholeheartedly with the Prime Minister: fairness does start with getting a job and with having reasonable access to a job. But it does not end there. That is what this government does not understand.

Getting a job and having fair access to getting a job is of course crucial to our society. It is crucial to individual dignity, it is crucial to giving people choices about their lives and it is crucial to their social participation in our society. But fairness does not end there. It is also about how you are treated when you walk in the doors of your workplace. It is about whether you can walk in and know that you will be treated with simple dignity and respect by your employer, whether you will be treated as an equal and whether you will be able to look your employer in the eye, safe in the knowledge that the law provides you sufficient protections so that you do not need to be fearful. You do not need to be fearful about losing conditions that you have enjoyed in the past. You do not need to be fearful about what is going to be in your pay packet in the future. You do not need to be fearful about losing your job entirely and having no remedy once it is lost. You do not need to fear those things, because the law has put around you a safety net which means that fear does not have to rage through you. That is what the Howard government forgets. It says that fairness is about getting a job but it forgets about fairness when you are in that job. It most particularly forgets about fairness beyond.

As I said, I do not think the wants and needs of Australians are all that complicated. Beyond fairness at work, they want to know that their kids go to a great school. They want to know that in a time of illness or crisis for them or for a family member there would be a hospital that they could rely on to meet their needs. They want to know that we live in a safe country and that they can move about it freely and without fear. The tragedy is that, after more than 10 years of this government, if we look at its track record against the simple wants and aspirations of Australians, it is a failure. This country is less safe than it was as a result of the Howard government. This country is less safe because of the government’s foreign policy; it is less safe because of the way the government has conducted itself on the world stage.

The schools in our society are now at a stage where people fear that they are not giving kids the best possible start in life. I am the product of a state school system. I went to state schools at every level and, courtesy of the Whitlam government, I then went to university and obtained two degrees. I fear that it is harder today for a girl from a working-class family to make that journey than when I was young. I fear that that is the case. It is an unbelievably dim thing to say about your nation that opportunities for boys and girls from working families have actually diminished in the time since I was young and at school, and they have substantially diminished during the life of the Howard government.

When it comes to a particular passion of mine over the last few years, the health system, things have certainly diminished in a way which is a cause for concern for all Australians. The real tragedy here is that things have happened not as a result of economic crises or as a need to tighten belts in a time of economic recession but in a time of prosperity. We have and currently continue to enjoy what the member for Lilley has described as the modern-day equivalent of a gold rush—that is what the resources boom is. It has brought us great wealth and great prosperity, as has the opening up of this economy through the reforms which were hard fought for in the Hawke and Keating years.

What this government has failed to realise for more than a decade is that it is in the most prosperous of times that you make the investments for the future. It is in the most prosperous of times that you do the reforms that will ensure that your society, its schools, its hospitals and its other institutions are robust enough to sustain the difficult times which inevitably, at some point in the future, will come. This government has squandered the opportunity to invest and reform. What we need now is a government that is prepared to do just that.

This is a government that has grown tired. This is a government that has grown stale. This is a government that has grown arrogant. Even its best friends would concede that it is a government whose best days are behind it, not in front of it. The road for the Howard government is inexorably downwards. For Labor, the road is inexorably upwards, because we will be contesting at the next election on the basis of who has the new energy, the new vision, the new ideas and the new style of leadership to make sure that the reforms that this country needs actually happen. In that contest of ideas, which the Leader of the Opposition has referred to, the Howard government cannot have a winning place because people will look at its track record and they will say: ‘If those reforms were going to be made, why haven’t they done it already? Where is the start? Where is the enthusiasm? Where is the passion? Where is the vision?’ What they will see is the same old faces looking more tired, looking older, looking more stale and certainly looking no longer to have a vision for this country.

When we look at our healthcare system as an example of the kind of reform that this government has failed to deal with, we see a system that is riddled with contradictions. On the one hand, we live in a nation where a scientist has invented the cervical cancer vaccine, a medical miracle that is going to be made available to women and girls that will mean that women in future generations who sit in this parliament will have 70 per cent lower cervical cancer rates than the women who sit in this parliament today; on the other hand, we have pensioners taking their teeth out with pliers after a couple of glasses of alcohol because they cannot get access to a public dental system—a contradiction writ large, and a contradiction that does not seem to trouble the conscience of the Howard government. Well, it troubles my conscience, and I think it troubles the consciences of most Australians. They would like to be barracking for this country and saying, ‘Isn’t it fabulous; we’ve got world-class scientists,’ but I think they would like to be barracking for this country too and saying, ‘Isn’t it fabulous that we treat our elderly Australians with the dignity and respect which means that, if they need something done to their teeth, they can get it done, and they don’t need to go home, get the pliers out of the hardware drawer and do it themselves.’

If we are going to achieve that health care system, it is not just about showing more care and concern, though that is certainly needed; it is about showing the political will to reform our federation to make sure that the changes that our healthcare system needs to be sustainable for the future are made—and made now. There is probably only one smart thing that the Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott, ever said, and I am going to recount it now to the House. It is not often you can say that about Tony. He said: ‘The truth is that sooner or later there is going to have to be one level of government in charge of health. In reality, it is almost certainly going to have to be the federal government.’ That is not the only road to health reform, but at least there was a moment when the minister for health was prepared to talk about health reform. But the moment has come and gone. He no longer talks about health reform because he has been slapped down by his Prime Minister.

We on this side of the House have the reform zeal and the new ideas to know that, if we are going to have a great health system in 10, 20 and 30 years, we need to be brave enough to reform it and to reform the federal-state arrangements around it. That is what the Leader of the Opposition means when he talks about federalism. That is what he means when he talks about a new agenda, and that is an agenda for Australians for the future. (Time expired)

See this speech in context