Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Today we have figures showing that employment has increased by 64,900 and labour participation is up to 67 per cent—a record. More than two-thirds of Australians are participating in the labour market, with the unemployment rate in August remaining at 3.7 per cent. That is the envy of the world, and now more than 550,000 jobs have been created on our watch since we came to office.

What we have opposite, just like we had with the Housing Australian Future Fund legislation earlier, is an obsession with voting 'no' to everything, an obsession with just being negative. This is including an obsession with being negative about the referendum that Australians will get to vote in on 14 October.

Yesterday, as part of my job as Prime Minister, I chaired the National Science and Technology Council meeting. And yesterday, along with the science minister, we had a terrific meeting. The NSTC brings together the Chief Scientist and all of the best scientific brains in this country. Yesterday we heard from Mikaela Jade, a Dharug woman who has done research about science and the impact of First Nations science. She spoke about how, when Europeans came to south-west Sydney, they named Cabramatta after the Indigenous Australians eating the cohbra grub. The reason they were eating the cohbra grub, they found out many years later, was because it provided an antidote to smallpox. And now in the United States they have found that it is an antidote to superbugs. It's an example of where, if we're just prepared to listen, prepared to embrace and prepared to be positive, this can be a win for Indigenous Australians but also a win for our nation.

See this speech in context