Prime Minister
PRIME MINISTER: The Salvo's together with Kmart is the longest running Christmas appeal, and it's a great opportunity at this time of year, for everyone to put aside the many things that can distract us. But also, it's a time of the year when, so many Australians have faced so much hardship this year and I particularly want to thank the Salvos for the work that I've seen them doing out there supporting our fire fighters, responding to floods, this is the territory of the Salvos, it's been your mission and it's been your absolute devotion for so many years over your entire history. And I want to thank all the members of the Salvos of all the churches all around the country and for the way they reach out to our community, and I want to thank Kmart too for the partnership you've had together. I'm hoping Kmart's going to have a very busy Christmas, and I'm sure they will. And I want to thank everyone for bringing your gifts here today and for me, it is a Go Country for Christmas which has been a wonderful initiative which has been supported by politicians here and that's something to keep in mind as we go into this break and people can take the opportunity wherever they can, maybe where they're getting their Christmas presents from, you can go to Go Country for Christmas. You can find out all about that, which I know Michael and I have. So I'm going to put mine under the tree. It's going to take Anthony a little longer I suspect, because he's brought the whole caucus' with him. I'm not referring that to caucus in the trolley's, it's their gifts on behalf of the generosity of the Caucus that is in the trolleys. And I want to thank all those, there have been quite a number of events and functions that we've been hosting at the Lodge and here over the last week or so, and so the tree here and the tree at the Lodge is getting very, very full. And I think that's tremendous. Some 8 million gifts, 8 million gifts have been put under the trees around the country as part of this wonderful partnership between Kmart and Salvos. So God bless you, and thank you, and wish everyone a very merry Christmas.