E&OE...
Well thank you very much Anthony, my other parliamentary colleague Greg Smith, the local mayors, I thank all of them for coming, Sue Hoopmann, Ivan Petch, Nick Berman, ladies and gentlemen. This morning brings together a gathering of people who represent and are part of the life and the varied community of the electorate of Bennelong. And I want to thank the Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club for the venue that's been provided and the opportunity we have to gather and to exchange some views. What I'd like to do this morning after a few words about what I believe in about the future of this country, I want to do something a little different. Rather than spending half an hour talking to you I would like to invite you to ask me questions about issues that you think are important not only to the way the country is being run at the present time but also important to the way in which the country should be run in the future.
I know there is a lot of debate, and it's proper that there should be, about where we have come from over the last decade and Anthony was good enough and accurate enough in his inimitable style to outline some of the changes for the better that have occurred over the last decade. But my very strong view ladies and gentlemen is that Australia's best years lie ahead of her, that no matter how strong you may think Australia is at the present time, no matter how favourably we might compare Australia with the Australia of a decade or 20 years ago, the truth is that if we get things right, if we consolidate the gains that we have made, if at a time of some gathering of storm clouds on the international economic horizon we leave Australia's economy in strong and experienced hands and we don't experiment with people who've had no experience of running a trillion dollar economy, that there is no reason why Australia's best years do not lie before us. And that is my very, very strong view.
And we should be thinking about that future. We can reflect with some pride on the achievements of the last 10 years but we should spend more time reflecting on what is needed to make the next 10 years even better than the last 10 years and that, of course, is the role that...the responsibility that this government has and it means communicating to the Australian people a sense of belief about the kind of Australian nation we want. We want an Australian nation that is proud of its history, we want an Australian nation that believes in itself and believes, as it is, that it's unique amongst the family of nations. There is no country like Australia anywhere in the world because it's got everything. It's got a great heritage from Western civilisation, it's here in the Asian-Pacific region of the world which is the most dynamic and fastest growing. By the year 2025 there will be 800 million middle class citizens in this part of the world and the economic centre of gravity of the world is shifting to our part of the globe. And we have strong links, of course, with the most powerful nation in the world, the United States. And over the last decade we have managed the remarkable achievement of having built simultaneously closer relations with both the United States and with China. People said you couldn't do that. People said there was a natural conflict. Well there is, in fact, as we have demonstrated, no natural conflict and that we have been able to work very, very closely with both of those two very significant nations.
And of course here in Bennelong you see played out the reality of modern Australia. You see a diverse community, a wonderful contribution made by every section of the community and so many of those organisations are represented here today. So I have a great sense of enthusiasm and excitement about the next 10 years in this country. And they can be better than the last 10 years. We can have an even lower rate of unemployment. We can have even stronger businesses. We can simultaneously, if we take the right decisions, we can have a cleaner environment, but not at the cost of a weaker economy. Those two things ought never to be in conflict. We should always seek to reconcile both of them. And the last thing that I want to say about this gathering this morning is that it demonstrates the tremendous sense of community that is so important in all parts of Australia. I look around this room, I see people I have known for years, I see a lot of people who I haven't met before and I am very pleased that they have come along. But represented in this auditorium are all the organisations that make the community of Bennelong operate and work together so very, very effectively.
So my friends, welcome this morning. It's very, very good of you to all come. I want to keep quiet now. I want to thank you and I want to invite you to ask me any questions you want. If you want to give me some advice, free or otherwise, I don't mind. If you've got a bit of advice you want to give me about running the country, you please go right ahead and give it to me because nobody has a monopoly of wisdom here and we've got a great cross section of the Australian community and we've got some roving microphones and I'll be very, very happy to do my best to answer your questions. Thank you.
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