I acknowledge the First Australians on whose land we meet, and whose cultures we celebrate as among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
I'm proud to speak to you today - as the first Prime Minister from Queensland to address this Queensland State conference in almost a century.
I'm proud to come here with my Queenslander colleague and friend, Wayne Swan - the first Federal Treasurer from Queensland in a third of a century.
I'm proud also to share a stage with a great Premier, who has broken new ground for women in Queensland, Anna Bligh.
And beyond that I'd like to say thank you to this Queensland branch, and to all Queenslanders, for the large number of Queenslanders we returned to the Australian Parliament - the equal largest number of Queensland Federal Labor MPs ever in the nation's history.
And beyond politics, I'm looking forward to seeing Quentin Bryce in a few weeks' time and saying, G'day, Governor-General.
This isn't a ‘pineapple coup', as some have said - it's a timely recognition of this great state's role in Australia's future.
Queensland's contribution to the nation
Queensland is in the driving seat of the national economy.
* Queensland grew 6.8 per cent in the last financial year, the 11th consecutive year in which Queensland exceeded Australia's economic growth rate.
* For the seventh year in a row, Queensland will outstrip the growth of every other State except Western Australia.
* Queensland now contributes $187 billion to national income and $35 billion to the nation's exports - 53 per cent more than just five years ago.
* In the past five years Queensland has created more than 367,000 new jobs, while the population has grown by close to half a million people in that period.
And this is not the first time that Queensland has led the nation.
Queensland saw the world's first Labor government in the world in 1899.
A Queenslander also led the first majority government in Australian history - Andrew Fisher's Labor Government.
And it is now one hundred years since Andrew Fisher first became Prime Minister in 1908.
But today, I come to speak to you about a 21st century Labor government with a vision for a stronger Australia, a fairer Australia, a more secure Australia, and an Australia capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century.
But first I come to say thank you. Our success last year was the result of many people working enormously hard, and nowhere more so than in this State.
Thank you to the rank and file members of the Queensland branch who worked tirelessly to see the election of an Australian Labor Government.
Thank you to all members of the labour movement in Queensland, whose efforts through the ‘Your Rights at Work' campaign made such a difference on the ground.
Thank you also to our past State Secretary Milton Dick, and to our new State Secretary Anthony Chisholm, for your relentless hard work.
All those efforts helped deliver the largest swing we recorded anywhere in the nation - a swing of 7.5 per cent to Labor.
We achieved our best ever two-party preferred vote against the Coalition.
We won 9 seats in Queensland, the best performance in any state.
As a result we have:
* Shayne Neumann in Blair;
* Kerry Rea in Bonner;
* James Bidgood in Dawson;
* Chris Trevor in Flynn;
* Brett Raguse in Forde;
* Jim Turnour in Leichhardt;
* Jon Sullivan in Longman;
* Graham Perrett in Moreton, and
* Yvette D'Ath in Petrie.
Queensland also elected a new Senator, Mark Furner.
And we also say thank you to all of our Labor candidates who fought hard in seats across the whole state.
In particular, we acknowledge the efforts of three candidates who were beaten by thin margins of less than one percent:
* Jason Young in Bowman;
* Fiona McNamara in Dickson, and
* George Colbran in Herbert.
As we welcome the new members of our movement, we also note with sadness the passing last year of those who fought the fight and kept the faith.
Clem Jones made an immeasurable lifelong contribution to Queensland and the Labor Party, and especially to building the modern city of Brisbane.
And Tom Burns was the heart and soul of our movement for half a century.
Today I also want to thank Premier Anna Bligh for her leadership of this great State.
Anna is a leader who looks over the horizon to the long-term challenges facing the State.
She's a genuine partner in building a new, modern Australian Federation that will deliver a better deal for Queensland.
* A better deal through improved health services.
* A better deal through cutting regulation for business.
* And a better deal through a genuine national partnership in building the infrastructure Queensland needs for now and for the future.
Governing for the future: Labor's great tradition
The great task of Labor governments - whether at a Federal or State level - is to govern for the future.
We are the party tasked with navigating the nation's future.
Opposing us is a party lost in the past.
That is why our Labor Governments are committed to reform.
To build a stronger Australia.
To build a fairer Australia.
To build a forward-looking Australia, ready for the challenges of the future.
Think of the great legacy of Andrew Fisher, Queensland's first Prime Minister.
He built a stronger Australia through a program of nation-building:
building the fundamentals of national defence policy including establishing the Royal Australian Navy in 1910;
* establishing the seat of national government in the Australian Capital Territory, and
* establishing the Commonwealth Bank.
Under Andrew Fisher, Labor also built a fairer Australia:
* extending old age and invalid pensions;
* building a fairer industrial relations system, extending the arbitration system and introducing workers' compensation for Commonwealth employees, and
* introducing a baby bonus for mothers and helping reduce infant mortality.
These measures helped provide financial security for generations of Australians.
One hundred years later, new challenges fall to us.
Our challenge is to build a modern Australia that's capable of tackling the challenges of the new century that is now unfolding.
We've come to government amidst what the International Monetary Fund described as the greatest global financial shock since the Great Depression.
We have come to government at a time when the nation has been hit by the greatest global oil shock in more than thirty years.
And we've come to government with the highest inflation rate in 16 years, with ten interest rate rises in a row after the Australian people had been told that interest rates would be kept at record lows.
And in a longer term sense, the global economic map is now being re-drawn by the rise of China.
The rise of India.
And the great global and environmental challenge that is climate change.
In this time of great change, our task is to make Australia stronger and fairer, and to equip Australia with the long term strength to tackle the challenges of the 21st century.
A stronger Australia
The Government inherited an economy that had been weakened by years of long-term neglect.
The previous Government had fed the demand side of the economy with its lavish spending, but ignored the supply side - the nation's skill base, its infrastructure and regulation reform.
The result was the fastest-rising inflation in 16 years, and an increasingly uncompetitive economy.
These were unusually difficult economic conditions in which to frame a Budget.
But we delivered a responsible Budget, that addressed both the immediate and longer term challenges facing the economy.
We achieved a strong surplus of $22 billion and made tough spending decisions, reducing spending by over $7 billion.
This means that fiscal policy is targeted at fighting inflation and ease pressure on interest rates.
Looking forward, we must retain this fiscal discipline.
Because we must ensure that government spending does not fuel inflation, and we must focus spending on our long-term priority to lift productivity growth by investing in the future.
That is why the Government has begun an education revolution - with the long term objective of building the best educated, best trained and best skilled workforce in the world.
The Budget included major new initiatives in early childhood education, computers and trades training centres in every secondary school, 630,000 new training places over the next five years and thousands of new university scholarships.
But beyond this year's Budget, we've also established the $11 billion Education Investment Fund for the future - to invest in the 21st century needs of our universities and TAFE colleges.
Advanced infrastructure is also critical to building a stronger economy.
The Government has now established a $20 billion Building Australia Fund to fund future infrastructure needs.
We've also established Infrastructure Australia, the lead agency that will bring together Commonwealth and State expertise on infrastructure planning.
Its infrastructure audit will be completed early next year, providing us with a national Infrastructure Priority List by March 2009.
Our current competitive assessment process will determine the private sector partner for the new, high-speed, National Broadband Network, which will bring Australia fully into the digital economy of the 21st century.
The Government has also begun a new era of Commonwealth/State relations, to end the blame game, build a modern Federation and move towards a seamless national economy.
This is a big agenda. Andrew Fisher began working on matters like uniform railway gauges a century ago - and yet in 2008 we still don't have a national system of business name registration.
But the good news is, we are making progress. We are working through 27 priority laws for regulation reform.
And I salute the work being done by Craig Emerson in this important task for the Federation.
And I look forward to further progress when COAG meets early next month.
Perhaps our greatest long term challenge of all is climate change.
As the interim Garnaut Report highlighted, Australia is more exposed to the impact of climate change than probably any industrialised nation.
From the day we took office, we began taking action after more than a decade of denial and neglect.
Within minutes of taking office, the Government signed the instruments to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
We are now active participants in the Bali Roadmap on climate change.
And we're hard at work in designing the emissions trading scheme - one of the most important economic reforms of the next decade.
Delegates, we recognise that we've taken on a challenging workload.
But there's a long way to catch up to our competitors.
The pace of change in the world around us is matched only by the neglect and complacency of the Government that preceded us.
A fairer Australia
If we build a stronger economy for the long term, we can build a fairer Australia.
Like the Fisher Government of a century ago, we're committed to a fair go today for all Australians.
We believe that as a Labor government it is our responsibility to challenge the limitations placed on people's potential by the circumstances they inherit.
...Whether they're born into a remote Indigenous community, a family that's just made its home in Australia, or a fast-growing regional area.
A fairer Australia starts with fairness in the workplace.
Last year we committed to abolishing Australian Workplace Agreements for the future.
This year we honoured that commitment.
The Government is also delivering on our commitment to build a modern, fair and flexible industrial relations system.
We're now building a decent safety net for the future - and this week, we announced the National Employment Standards that will be the foundation of the new safety net.
We're consulting widely now, and later this year we will introduce the legislation for our new national workplace relations system.
The Government believes the purpose of a strong economy is that it delivers greater prosperity and a better life for all Australians.
That's why the Budget made no apology for tipping the scales back in favour of working families.
At its centre was a $55 billion Working Families Support Package.
That package helps families meet the increasing costs of living by providing tax cuts, and help with rising child care fees and the costs of education and housing.
Not everyone understands the reality of those pressures.
Last year the Liberals were telling us that working families have never been better off.
And this year, they've told us that rising inflation is a fairy tale.
The Government understands that families are under financial pressure because of rising costs of living such as mortgages, rents, petrol, groceries and childcare.
We know that we can't ease all the financial pressures on working families.
But we can make a difference - by focusing help on those who need it the most.
That's why we also made additional provision in the Budget for the most needy in our community:
* An additional $5.2 billion for Australia's 2.2 million seniors, compared with $1.5 billion in Mr Howard's last Budget - giving pensioners $900 in additional benefits compared with $500 in additional benefits under the previous Government's last Budget.
* An additional $1.1 billion for Australia's 430,000 carers in this Budget - giving recipients of both the carer's payments and the carer's allowance an additional payment this year of $2,100 - compared with the $1,600 provided in the previous Government's last Budget.
* For the first time, an additional $500 utilities allowance for disability support pensioners - at a cost of $1.16 billion over five years. That compares to them receiving nothing additional under the previous Government's last Budget.
No national government can turn around trends in global oil markets.
But governments can assist by helping the overall family Budget.
The Government has delivered $52 for the typical working family, while Mr Nelson promises relief worth just $2.50.
Governments can also help by boosting consumer power. That is why we are establishing FuelWatch - to help motorists get the best deal at the bowser.
Governments can also assist by applying pressure to OPEC in partnership with other governments, which is why Martin Ferguson is going to the meeting in Jedda this weekend.
Governments can also assist by planning for the future, such as with fuel efficient cars.
That's why through the Green Car Innovation Fund the Government is working with the three car manufacturers to ensure we are building the next generation of hybrid cars here in Australia. We are delighted with Toyota's commitment to build a hybrid Camry from 2010.
The Liberals oppose each of these measures because they have decided just to play politics with petrol - to do anything and say anything to get a headline.
We're also acting on housing affordability.
In the months ahead, we will also launch the First Home Saver Accounts, we will call for the first Expression of Interest for the construction of new affordable rental properties, and we'll use the Housing Affordability Fund to help reduce infrastructure charges and development delays that add to the cost of new homes.
Building a fairer Australia also means delivering universal, high quality health services to all Australians.
The Government announced a $3.2 billion National Health and Hospitals Reform Plan in the Budget.
This is just a start. We recognise that the health care system needs major long-term reform.
That's why we established a $10 billion Health and Hospitals Fund, and a National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission. We look forward to its interim report at the end of the year.
Anniversary of the Northern Territory Emergency Response
In building a fairer Australia, there can be no greater priority than closing the appalling gap in life opportunities for Indigenous Australians.
On 15 June last year the Little Children are Sacred report revealed shocking levels of child sexual abuse in 45 Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.
Six days later the Northern Territory Emergency Response was launched - recognising that this was an issue demanding immediate national action to urgently protect children in these remote communities.
Today is its first anniversary, and this morning, the Minister for Families, Communities and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, released a report on progress after the first year.
One year on, the Australian Government remains committed to the emergency response and determined to maintain its momentum.
Its effectiveness is critical to the change that's essential if Indigenous children are to be safe and healthy, growing up in families and communities which nurture and protect them.
We have learnt a lot from the first year.
We've learnt that much can be achieved working in partnership with Indigenous communities.
And that achieving real change involves new approaches and strong, forward-thinking leadership.
Important progress is being made, with more police on the ground, people feeling safer, 11,000 health checks for children with follow-up treatment, a major investment in housing and infrastructure, and 200 additional teachers being recruited over the next five years to teach the 2000 children previously not enrolled.
Income management has now been extended to more than 13,000 people in 52 communities, with licensed community stores reporting increased purchases of fresh food and more money spent on children.
The NT Emergency Response Task Force has now presented its final report to the Government.
It outlines the achievements of the NTER over the past 12 months and puts forward a range of recommendations across the areas of child protection, education, health, education housing, stores and community safety.
We will be closely considering their advice.
We have also begun a review of the NTER, headed by three experienced and highly regarded figures in Indigenous affairs.
We expect this report in October this year, and will then be mapping out the way forward both in the Northern Territory and beyond.
In the meantime, the implementation of the Emergency Response continues.
Progress has been made in the last 12 months, but much remains to be done to meet our targets to close the gap on Indigenous life opportunities.
Planning for the future
Long term policy is necessary for infrastructure, education, health and for tackling Indigenous disadvantage.
But perhaps our greatest long term challenge for the future is climate change.
As the interim Garnaut Report highlighted, Australia is more exposed to the impact of climate change than probably any industrialised nation.
From the day we took office, we began taking action after more than a decade of denial and neglect.
Within minutes of taking office, the Government signed the instruments to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
We are now active participants in the Bali Roadmap on climate change.
And we're hard at work in designing the emissions trading scheme - one of the most important economic reforms of the next decade.
Delegates, we recognise that we've taken on a challenging workload.
But there's a long way to catch up to our competitors.
But the Government is determined to act.
Delivering for Queensland
Today I've outlined a wide-ranging program for a stronger and fairer Australia, and an Australia that plans for the long term future.
It is a demanding program.
But it is also a necessary program.
But it means delivering outcomes on the ground, where it counts.
So let me mention some of the ways we're delivering on Queensland's critical infrastructure needs.
With 1,700 people crossing the border into Queensland every week, infrastructure in south-east Queensland is under great stress.
It's estimated that by 2020 urban congestion will cost families and businesses in Brisbane more than $3 billion.
That's the economic cost - but there's a social cost too, with many commuters spending more time in their cars than they do with their kids.
That's why the Government is taking decisive action to combat congestion and get our cities moving again.
In 2008-09, we will invest $826 million in nation-building road projects in Queensland.
This includes $63 million to make an early start on our election commitments - getting work going 12 months ahead of schedule on projects like the Townsville Port Access Road and the Pacific Motorway.
We're also committed to the full upgrade of South East Queensland's worst road - the Ipswich Motorway.
We've allocated $2 billion to upgrade the priority sections between Dinmore to Darra to six lanes, and further work will be assessed by either Infrastructure Australia and built by either the Building Australia Fund or under the next Auslink.
We've also entered into a $20 million partnership with the Bligh Government to plan the next stage of the Gateway Motorway upgrade.
It's Brisbane's only north-south bypass, it's part of the national network and yet the Coalition wouldn't put a cent into fixing it.
But the Government also understands that Queensland is Australia's most decentralised mainland state.
40% of those who come to Queensland every week move to regional areas, especially to booming cities like Gladstone, Mackay and Cairns.
And the artery that runs through the heart of these communities is the Bruce Highway.
That's why, after years of neglect, the Government has a $2.2 billion plan to upgrade the Bruce.
Over $150 million will be spent in 2008-09 on widening in Caboolture and Gympie and safety and flood works in north Queensland.
Delegates, to build a stronger, fairer and more secure Australia, and an Australia that plans for the future, not that simply allows the future to plan for us - we must remain in government.
And that comes back to you, and your efforts on behalf of the great Labor cause.
We're proud of the extraordinary results we gained in November.
But we would lose the next election with just a small swing against us.
We are in times of exceptional global financial volatility.
We realise that makes it more challenging to deliver on our long term plans.
But it also makes them more important.
We know as well that because Labor Governments are committed to reform, we always face higher expectations.
In delivering our plan for the future, we must govern with discipline, with focus and with absolute unity of purpose.
We must be willing to make difficult decisions in the nation's long term interest.
We are the party of the future.
The party that can best lead change.
We've governed this nation through many difficult times in the century past.
We face greater challenges ahead.
But together, we can and will deliver for the people of Australia