E&OE............................
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much Unis, to Charles Chambers the Chairman of the Board of Management of Mission Australia, to Patrick MacClure, Vic Smith the Mayor of South Sydney, to Susie and Judith, ladies and gentlemen. It's an unusual but very special privilege for me to be here this morning in this very well known and special part of the wonderful, cosmopolitan city of Sydney in which I grew up and loved so very much and so many of us gathered here today know and love for all its great variety and diversity and colour.
So it's a great delight to take a few moments out from the normal ebb and flow of national political life and come here this morning and be associated with the official opening of a facility which has been produced by something that in the time I've been Prime Minister I've greatly encouraged and hoped would produce many fine role models, and that is the notion of a social coalition involving a partnership between the business community and the great welfare organisations of our nation.
And that is exactly what Lou's Place is. It's been made possible because you've had two sections of society each with their own expertise recognising that acting alone they can't produce something but acting together they can produce something quite remarkable. And it does all of us who have been fortunate, who have had relatively happy and stable and comfortable lives, periodically to be confronted with the reality that the ideal is so frequently denied to many in our community.
And the value of Lou's Place has been so eloquently demonstrated in that beautiful poem is that it does offer hope to those in the community who've been less fortunate than others. And I can't think of any organisation that does more to live out that ideal of offering people a hope and alternative than Mission Australia. It's one of our nation's great welfare organisations, it is an organisation that has carried practical Christianity and practical care and concern to people into the streets and the suburbs and the homes and the clubs and the pubs of our country for decades. And it's an organisation that has come together with some very public-spirited men and women who've been successful in corporate life that are willing to put something back into the community. And I want to congratulate Elsa O'Reilly, I want to congratulate all of her colleagues, Susie and all the others who've worked so very hard and I want to thank them on behalf of the community for what they've done.
This does provide a very practical and sustaining source of hope and encouragement for women and children in our community who deserve some understanding and assistance and deserve the kind of inspiration and encouragement that has produced the change in life and the change in attitude and the new hope and the new beginning of which that poem spoke so beautifully. And the fact that so many people in our community who've done well, they've done well in business, done well in the leading professions, done well in other aspects of commercial life have been willing to come here to engage the partnership of an organisation like Mission Australia and put together this wonderful facility is to me, Prime Minister a source of hope and a vindication of the belief that there is something very pure and decent in the soul of our country. Because while ever you have people that are willing to that then the country has a lot of hope and a lot of optimism.
And a society and a nation is made up of far more than economic statistics, far more than gross domestic products and rates of inflation and all of that, that we've talked about so much and read so much about, it's very importantly, more importantly made up of millions of human lives. Many of them are happy and fulfilled, many of them unfortunately are sad and tragic and the extent that any of us can do something in our daily lives to provide more happiness for those that are sad and tragic then we're all fulfilled and we all achieve something in the name of humanity.
And when I talk about the social coalition I talk about the Government's role in providing a social security safety net, I recognise the enormous contribution made by organisations like Mission Australia, I think of the philanthropy of thousands upon thousands of Australians, I think of the contributions of many men and women in business and my mantra is I don't ask that business give more I simply ask that more businesses give. Because there are many businesses within our community who already give generously and I hope their example is followed by many more who now don't give so generously.
I want to thank the Mayor for the very strong support that I know he has given to this facility, he's very proud of the diverse character of South Sydney and it is something of a specialty as an area, I know many parts of it very well. As a long time resident of Sydney I know south Sydney very well as one does know so many of the areas in our wonderful city. But your contribution and your help this is an occasion where everybody in the community has come together but most importantly of all is does operate a facility for women and their children, in the main disadvantaged people, women who've been either abused or in other ways unfairly treated or exploited and it offers them a supportive environment, an opportunity to find a new life and to build a new beginning which is their right. And I congratulate very generously and very warmly all of those people who've played such a major role in supporting Lou's Place, it is dedicated in memory of a wonderful people and I congratulate the partnership which has made it possible involving that organisation, Mission Australia, and I have great pleasure in declaring Lou's Place officially opened.
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