Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to draw attention to some of the recent remarks of the Prime Minister, especially the EMILY's List Oration and 15thbirthday that we marked last week. The address that the Prime Minister gave to the Chifley Research Centre was entitled 'Labor in Australia is a movement'. I wish to recognise the importance of the decisions and the depth of the words the Prime Minister has delivered in recent weeks. While I do so as a member of the party led by the Prime Minister, as a supporter and as a colleague, I also do so equally as an Australian citizen who believes very strongly that the office of Prime Minister is one deserving of esteem and respect.

I am, I would presume like all Senators here, an avowed democrat with an interest in the history of the development of democracy in this country. In my short time thus far as a senator in this place, having had the opportunity to explore Canberra, I have been reminded that the role of parliament and government in this country has and continues to be central to the creation of a prosperous nation—a prosperous Australia. Our leaders, and we senators, all have a great responsibility, I believe, to lead as well as represent. Our words and deeds, especially those of the Prime Minister, are written into the fabric of our society, just as the words of our past leaders are inscribed on our national monuments and their deeds are reflected in the grand institutions of this city.

These marks that are etched into history, which remain relevant to any Australian of any time, necessarily speak to not just policy and the issues of the day but also the approach that those leaders have taken in their role at the most fundamental level. They speak to the most basic values that have guided the decisions of government and, in turn, guided the direction of Australian society. The enduring influence of these values is not always evident and not always discussed in the cut and thrust of the daily 24-hour news cycle or in the debates with which we most often occupy ourselves in this place. While sometimes the discourse of this chamber and the very great volume of our extra-parliamentary debate simply does not reflect that rich tradition and those great moments of change in Australian society, and although it is easy to be drawn into conversations of negativity, criticism or, worst of all, trivia, it is the case that great words and substantial deeds do still play a role in Australia's development. They do still play a role in Australian government. And we do have the fortune of having a leader of this country who carries the dignity of her office, who is committed to dealing with important things and who considers the values that will bear her and our mark on history—Labor values.

Last Tuesday, 13 September, the Prime Minister gave the inaugural EMILY's List Oration. EMILY's List is a movement designed to support progressive Labor women in achieving office. It is an organisation which has enabled me, like so many other women on this side of the chamber, to take the opportunities of election that women were so long denied and where women are still underrepresented. The Prime Minister's speech was a reflection on the history of the women's movement and the extraordinary challenges that have been confronted and defeated by women who were determined, practical and brave.

The drivers of change have been women who held firm to their values but never detached them from the real tasks and actual situations of women in politics and in society. Their result—the signal of the success of the women's movement—has, in the words of the Prime Minister, been in 'taking the remarkable and rendering it unremarkable'. It is important, I think, to dwell on that sentence a short time. What it means is that whatever progress we make—and we have made considerable progress—we must remember that we always had to work hard. Those women and men, those leaders and ordinary people who believed in the right to the vote, to decent work, to fair pay and to a proper share of life's opportunities always had to strive to achieve what we can sometimes take for granted today.

The Prime Minister's oration was a reminder that there is still so much work to be done, that we cannot become complacent by assuming either that the task is done or that progress is inevitable. It never has been and it never will be, and we must be active in stamping out inequality wherever it exists in our society. I strongly support the Prime Minister's comments—comments which reflect the principles on which the Labor Party has always been based and by which Labor members like me have stirred and agitated and insisted. That is why the Labor Party are the party of reform and why the Labor Party fight for equality rather than sitting back and hoping that opportunity will simply trickle down against a backdrop of inequity, poverty or patriarchy.

This approach is captured in the title of another of the significant speeches the Prime Minister gave last week, 'Labor in Australia is a movement'. This was an address to the Chifley Research Centre, where again the Prime Minister made reference to Curtin's courage, which kept us free in times of war, and Chifley's convictions, which built a nation. I draw that to the attention of senators in this place, as I did in my first speech, because it is the values of Labor which guide us and which were reflected last week in those two significant addresses by the Prime Minister, both the EMILY's List Oration and the address to the Chifley Research Centre.

They are the values that will guide us into the future—the values of equality, opportunity and respect for difference amongst us—as well as the recognition at all times that it is through the struggles of leaders past and present for those values that we find ourselves here today. They are the values that guide us as Labor senators and members and will guide us into the future. We need to hold dear those Labor values that, at a time when the news media are very much focused on negativity in regard to the issues of the day, do not bear the light they should.

The government are faced each day with the task of judging the public and the national interest; weighing public desires and perceptions, and expert advice; dealing with new challenges and unpredictable circumstances; and dealing with situations in which the intentions and motivations of our leaders cannot always be fully expressed or achieved. In these situations, in the everyday administration and on the most momentous of occasions, our decisions are filtered through the prism of our values, and it is only fair that, in a democracy, our citizens know what those values are and on what basis we are acting.

Our vision for a better Australia is likely common to all in this place, although our values and approaches to government are often starkly different. I am proud that Australia has a Prime Minister who is willing to clearly articulate her values, whose values I share and whose values will reverberate not just through the halls and places in Canberra where speeches are made but also through the legacy of action with which they are imbued.