Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

You can get up and speak any time you want, Member for Bennelong. Have a go. Australia has a choice. We could choose the Liberal's bleak and narrow view—the meaner, colder, crueller and more expensive country beloved of conservatives—but Labor believe this country can do better. We remain convinced and dedicated to the proposition that fairness is still the most sensible, pragmatic and decent path to a bright future. Despite their woeful unfair budget, their contradictory answers, their infighting and their broken promises, the Liberal Party of Australia and the ventriloquist dummies of Australian politics, the National Party, say to Labor, 'What is your answer?' Here again is our answer, and you will hear it every day for the next two years. We still believe in fairness. We believe a budget can be fair and sustainable. We believe in universal quality health care, a great education, a decent pension and world-leading superannuation.

I note the Prime Minister is going to visit the United States next week. While he is there I urge him to reflect on the wise words of Martin Luther King:

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper …

Labor will hold true to that wisdom.

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