Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister advise the House of the decisions that this parliament must now make in the national interest and how leadership is vital in leading the national debate?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Prime Minister will resume her seat until the House comes to order.

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

I thank the member for Canberra for her question. I would say to the member for Canberra, and I would say to the House, that we stand here today in this House of Representatives in a peaceful, prosperous, multicultural nation, a creative and confident nation because of the reforms enacted by governments of both political persuasions over the past 30 years. These reforms ensured that our nation would be prosperous for the future and that it would be a nation of peace and creativity and multiculturalism.

If we go through the great economic reforms of our age, of the past 30 years, that have brought us here to this point—the floating of the dollar; the reduction of tariff walls; the embracing of free trade and an open, competitive economy; banking competition to ensure that we had competitive, stable banks; the goods and services tax, a major reform to the taxation system in this nation—these major reforms of the past have enabled us to have a prosperous economy that has survived the GFC, the global financial crisis, and it today can offer Australians the benefit of jobs. There are so many nations around the world where people lack the benefits and dignity of work, but in this country people can have the benefit of jobs.

And because of the courageous decisions of the governments’ past, we live in a multicultural society and we proudly have a non-discriminatory immigration program. It has not always been easy. It was not easy in the days of the One Nation challenge to the non-discriminatory immigration program. It was not easy, but both sides of the parliament worked together to ensure that we kept that non-discriminatory immigration program.

We entered this week in federal politics having had a divisive and ugly debate about multiculturalism. The Leader of the Opposition faced a test of his leadership, a test to endorse a non-discriminatory immigration policy, a test that required him to get rid of his shadow immigration minister and a shadow parliamentary secretary. He has failed that test. We have ended this week with the Leader of the Opposition moving a motion he knew could not be carried in an act of absurdity to try to start a new fear campaign.

This is the year of decision and delivery. We will bring our reforming heritage, our Labor values of reform from the past, to the task of pricing carbon, to the task of implementing health reform, to the task of increasing opportunity for Australians through a better education system, to the task of ensuring Australians have the benefits and dignity of work and to the task of building the National Broadband Network to make sure we have the jobs of the future. And there the Leader of the Opposition stands, clutching his increasingly hollow three-word slogans: a man with no ideas, no policies, no plans for the nation’s future; a man who is skilled in the ability to wreck, but who lacks the ability to create. He has no idea how to drive the change that this nation needs. There are some members on his backbench who remember the proud reforming tradition of the Liberal Party. We will wait to see those members come to the fore over the coming weeks because they do not want to be associated with the politics of the Leader of the Opposition. And with those words, Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.