Sydney
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[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OMITTED]
We're here in the name of a truly great Australian, Margaret Whitlam.
We honour her memory and celebrate her life.
For over sixty years, Margaret was part of our Labor family, and in the end she stood at its very core.
Now with Margaret's absence, there is a gap we can never fill.
So tonight our first thoughts must be with Gough, who is making the lonely journey without his lifelong partner and equal.
Gough - you are in our hearts and our affection, tonight and always.
I want to acknowledge another woman of courage and class, Tanya Plibersek.Tanya's the daughter of “modest, hardworking, generous people” as she put it herself; people who came from Eastern Europe in search of a better future.
Tanya seized every opportunity available to her and now stands at the forefront of our nation's public life.
I've been privileged to share my entire federal political journey with Tanya since we entered the Parliament together in 1998.
I'm proud to call her both a colleague and a friend.
Tanya is just the sort of smart, feisty woman that Margaret Whitlam loved - and indeed, Tanya I know Margaret did love and admire you very much.
No-one could better represent this area, its people, its history and its values.
The electorate of Sydney covers a wonderful part of this metropolis where our great party kicked into life.
Yes it's a very different place to the run-down terrace houses of yesteryear with one cold water tap and kids running around without shoes.
Today, we're likely to see solar panels on rooftops and broadband being connected.
I'm not here to give a lecture on Margaret Whitlam - but there are some features of her life that can guide and instruct us.
On one occasion Margaret was reflecting on a photo of herself as a baby - the picture is reproduced in Susan Mitchell's biography and it shows a plump, healthy, happy infant.
Margaret observed that she was “Well cared for. Loved and wanted”, as she wished every Australian child could be.
Margaret grew up in the 1920s and 30s, the daughter of a barrister who later became an eminent judge.
It was a life of relative privilege in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, and she could just as easily have become a society matron like many of her classmates.
But she didn't.
Even from a childhood of privilege, Margaret had a profound belief in fairness.
Long before it found expression in the Labor Party and her partnership with Gough, Margaret held that value of fairness closer than anything.
It was her touchstone.
To live a good life, she felt she had to spread fairness and opportunity to others.
So marriage to Gough became not just a union of hearts and intellects, but also a meeting of moral and social values.
Because of Gough's ambition to serve, together they spent 25 years sharing the life of the suburbs; understanding the dignity of that life but also the limitations.
Lack of transport. No sewerage. Poor schools. Inadequate hospitals.
As Susan Mitchell records:
“it was Margaret who had organised the building of two houses [in the outer suburbs], raised four children there and arranged for them to travel twenty miles to a high school and twelve miles to a swimming pool (before she helped build one in Cabramatta).
Margaret, who had always loved reading, had lived where there were few municipal libraries, no paved roads within a mile of their houses and no paved footpaths”. [Margaret Whitlam by Susan Mitchell, p177]
The famous Whitlam ‘Program' was born out of that lived experience, out of deep respect for Australian suburban life.
And at the heart of that program was the rights and empowerment of women including his decision to fling open the doors of higher education for all Australians.
Even now, women still write letters of thanks to Gough for this nation-changing policy.
As a result, Australian women live lives of opportunity unimaginable to our grandmothers.
In our own time, a woman of Margaret Whitlam's intellect, warmth and courage could surely have become a senior federal Minister or even Prime Minister.
Born 40 years later, it could easily have been Margaret instead of me or Tanya.
But why didn't Margaret Whitlam become an elected representative in her own right or even Prime Minister?
The answer is because Gough Whitlam hadn't yet become Prime Minister.
It just wasn't possible for a woman brought up in the 1920s and 30s, even one with a university education, a comfortable upbringing and strong social connections as Margaret enjoyed.
Yet the daughter of a psych nurse and an aged care cook from the suburbs of Adelaide could get there.
The difference, of course, was Gough Whitlam.
The difference was the things that happen when Labor governs.
Through his transformative work on women's rights and access to education, it was Gough who created the Australia in which the Julia Gillards, the Tanya Pliberseks, the Jenny Macklins, the Ged Kearneys could thrive.
That's the great Labor story we share and celebrate tonight.
That's the great Labor story that keeps us renewing our membership, year after year, in good times and in bad.
Because the work of nation-building is never complete.
The only way to truly honour Gough and Margaret's legacy is by extending it.
Throwing forth new bridges to the future.
And protecting the things we've already achieved; the things worth fighting for.
In 2013, that means keeping the Liberals off the Treasury benches and keeping Tony Abbott out of The Lodge.
Think about it this way:
At the 1969 poll - the Don's Party election - Gough and Margaret were hosting their traditional election night party at their home in Cabramatta.
Margaret put on a brave face all evening but when the guests had gone home, young Stephen Whitlam saw his mum crying in the backyard all alone, and he quickly perceived the reason for her tears.
In his words: “After all we'd done, after all we'd tried to do, the bastards won”.
In another decisive election year, I want every progressive Australian to know and understand the moral of the story is exactly the same:
Don't let that be us.
Don't let the wrong side win.
Don't be one of those people driving around with a bumper sticker saying: Don't blame me, I didn't vote for Tony Abbott.
Don't let them get away with it.
They aren't ready and they don't deserve it.
Tony Abbott is all platitudes and no policy.
Empty of ambition for the country, but full of ambition for himself.
He's never had a new idea about disability care.
Never had a new idea about broadband or clean energy.
Never had an idea about better funding for our schools.
All we get is talk of cuts and sackings and abolishing good and decent policies like the carbon price, the NBN and our plan to fund schools fairly.
We know what an Abbott government would look like because we saw it in the Menzies era, the Fraser era, the Howard era.
The erosion of common values; the neglect of public institutions.
Public education, public broadcasting, public health,public transport.
The Liberals inherit, but they do not create.
They destroy but they never build.
That's why Paul Keating posed this question about the prospect of an Abbott-led Australia: “Is that all there is?”
Our answer to that question must be no.
A resounding, defiant no.
There is more.
More Australia can do.
More Australia can be.
Give me a majority and we can do it all.
Especially given our extraordinary track record amid the constraints of minority government:
Keeping our economy strong with almost a million jobs created.
Clean energy up, carbon pollution down.
A fair go for all Australian schools, public and private alike.
Early childhood education; more apprenticeships; and more university places, especially for poorer students.
DisabilityCare - the greatest social reform in 30 years.
Bringing high-speed broadband to every Australian and breaking Telstra's monopoly grip forever.
Delivering tax cuts to our lowest paid and making sure superannuation benefits increase, especially for those who need them most.
Higher pay for our community sector workers.
Financial help for pensioners and for families.
Health reform, and aged care reform.
The biggest Commonwealth investment in public transport since Federation.
A Royal Commission to bring healing and justice to victims of horrendous betrayal.
Plain packaging to help protect our kids from the dangers of smoking.
We won't let go of these achievements so easily.
Could we have done some things better?
Of course.
But in the end, on the big things that count, we have proven to be a good government.
A government worth fighting for.
A government affirmed and emboldened in our sense of Labor purpose.
Unlike our opponents, we don't measure political success by how well you've been able to denigrate and disrupt.
We measure ourselves by a very different metric: by what we achieve for Australia.
So to all those who want things to be better, I say things can be better.
With a majority Labor government, things can be better.
With a more constructive Opposition led by someone other than Tony Abbott, things can be better.
After three extraordinary years, we've been toughened and tempered through experience.
We've got the big calls right.
And while the Opposition have a flimsy pamphlet, we've got a plan.
A plan for Australia's future.
A detailed, credible plan to make us winners in the Asian Century and seize the opportunities of tomorrow.
As members and supporters of our great Party, you know better than everyone that politics is about ideas and it's about achievements.
Leadership is about getting the big things done that really matter for our nation's future.
So an election is a contest of values and contest of ideas.
Some people like to set-up an idealised version of a perfect Labor Government and then pick apart all our faults. Any armchair critic can do that.
I know there's a lot of talk and chatter out there.
All sorts of scenarios and alternatives are imagined every day.
But forget all the noise and nonsense.
The choice today is the choice that will be available on September 14: Tony Abbott or me; a majority Labor government or a majority Coalition government.
So I'd say to anyone questioning what's on offer, reduce this election to its most fundamental proposition:
If you want fairer funding for our schools and a life of opportunity for our kids;
If you want a clean energy revolution;
If you want true high-speed broadband;
If you want DisabilityCare;
If you want to protect jobs and working conditions;
If you want those new rail lines rolled-out in our big cities;
If you want to continue our great work on the arts and the environment, then vote for me.
And on the other side of the coin: if you want cuts in health and education, cuts that hurt families and cost jobs, then vote for Tony Abbott.
Simple as that.
We know that true and profound differences are at stake in this election.
Nothing's inevitable.
Everything's possible.
There is a choice.
So share our great story with your friends and neighbours, your work-mates and loved ones.
Hold firm to our Labor faith.
Take pride in our achievements.
And don't let the wrong side win.