Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for La Trobe for her question and I thank her for her continuing concern for people in her constituency and her focus on their opportunity, on jobs, on their ability to start and succeed in a small business and also on the things that go to support the modern families who live in her electorate with the pressures of day-to-day life.

The member for La Trobe asks a very important question. First and foremost, let me say this: we as a nation are a strong nation and we are a smart nation. I am tired of the discourse in our national life that talks those attributes down. We have always been a nation which has presented strong in the world. We have always been a nation that has been smart and been able to bring clever solutions to complex problems. Indeed, our history is one of doing that. As a strong and smart nation, we have always aspired to be a fair nation. That is why this nation has been constructed around, and its national ethos is attached to, great Labor reforms like our introduction of the pension, like our introduction of Medicare, like our introduction of universal superannuation and like the fair workplace laws we will always believe in.

See this speech in context