It’s fantastic to be here.
I want to thank the people of Lithgow for welcoming me and my colleagues with such enthusiasm and I particularly thank the Lithgow City Band for being here to play for us.
I couldn’t help but notice that the tune you were playing when we arrived was called Count Your Blessings.
Well, I tell you I am counting my blessings having arrived here in Lithgow because it was a very long 150 kilometres I have to say.
I was told the road between Mudgee and Lithgow had a few undulations. Well, when you have got the fuel injected four-litre straight six-cylinder engine under your bonnet yes they are a few undulations but when every single kilometre has to be pedal-powered they were big, big hills indeed but it is a great thing that we are doing.
I want to thank all of my Parliamentary colleagues. I want to thank Guy Barnett, former Senator now in the Tasmanian Parliament, I want to thank Dave Gillespie the member for Lyne, I want to thank Kevin Andrews the Minister for Social Services, I want to thank Angus Taylor the Member for Hume and I particularly want to thank Senator Mitch Fifield the Assistant Minister for Social Services who has particular responsibility for people with disability.
I want to thank all of them.
Along the way they were also joined by Barnaby Joyce who is the Minister for Agriculture, they were joined along the way by Mark Coulton, who was with us this morning, Luke Hartsuyker the Assistant Minister for Employment. So, quite a big team of Members of Parliament who have been out there over the last few days raising money for carers.
Now, ‘count your blessings’ is a very good theme for this ride because there are many people in the world who are not as blessed as we are. Whether it is people in our society who are doing it tough, whether it is people in other countries who are not as fortunate as we are in Australia because anyone who is born in Australia has well and truly won the lottery of life. Wherever we look, there are people who are less fortunate and the challenge for all of us is to do what we can to help.
There are three million unpaid carers in this country; sometimes it is parents caring for kids, kids caring for parents, siblings caring for one another, spouses caring for each other, friends caring for each other but there are three million of them who spend a serious amount of time looking after someone they love.
Carers Australia represents all of those people and what we are doing today, what my colleagues have been doing for the last six days is raising the profile of carers, trying to, I guess, reconnect to parts of Australia that politicians don’t get to visit that often. Yes, we’re trying to demonstrate the importance of a healthy lifestyle but above all else we are trying to say, all of us we should count our blessings and one way of counting our blessings is to look after everyone.
That’s what Carers Australia is on about.
So, thank you so much for coming out today in such numbers to make us welcome and please when you leave this gathering today count your blessings and reach out to someone who perhaps is not quite as blessed and encourage that person to see the good in life and do what you can to help that person. That is what those three million carers do every single day, every single week, every single month, every single year. The one thing you never get is a holiday from caring when you are caring for someone you love.
So, thanks so much. Thank you.
[ends]