I am absolutely clear what Labor stands for, what we aspire to achieve, what our culture is and our role as a party of government.
Friends, if Australian politics has a grand old party, it is ours.
Before there was a Parliament of Australia our Party had known great victories and great defeats.
We have done great things.
We created the aged pension, brought the Sixth and Seventh Divisions home from the Middle East, dammed the Snowy, modernised the economy, said sorry to our Indigenous peoples.
The historic mission of our political party is to ensure the fair distribution of opportunity. From the moment of our inception our mission has been to enable the son of the labourer, the daughter of the cleaner, to have access to same the opportunities in life as the son of the millionaire, the daughter of the lawyer.
Labor culture values the strength that comes from working as a team
The differences between Labor and the Greens take many forms but at the bottom of it are two vital ones.
The Greens wrongly reject the moral imperative to a strong economy.
The Greens have some worthy ideas and many of their supporters sincerely want a better politics in our country. They have good intentions but fail to understand the centrepiece of our big picture – the people Labor strives to represent need work.
And the Greens will never embrace Labor’s delight at sharing the values of every day Australians, in our cities, suburbs, towns and bush, who day after day do the right thing, leading purposeful and dignified lives, driven by love of family and nation.
To shape the future by pricing carbon, rolling out the NBN, and delivering a better health care system and to see our mission through in Afghanistan.
That is what I was elected for and that is what I will do.
One single project – the $43 billion Gorgon gas project – is worth about the same as two years of output in agriculture.
Or to take a more domestic analogy, five years ago the money earned from exporting 10,000 tonnes of iron ore would buy about 280 dishwashers.
Today it would buy you around 1400 dishwashers.
On any measure, we are living through a boom and that boom is a good thing.
Mine workers earn higher wages, suppliers benefit, superannuation funds earn more and the higher dollar is cutting prices for household goods like clothes, appliances, televisions and computers.
The boom is good news for Australia and we should celebrate it.
This budget will be about making the right decisions for the country; the right decisions for families and the right decisions for jobs.
I will never risk the economy and people’s jobs for the soft political option of putting off hard decisions to next time.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2011/04/01/gillard-we-are-a-party-of-ideas/
Has me spewing on my monitor.
I tried to intersperse some commentary between these snippets, but I just kept spewing over and over again onto my computer, made it very difficult.
Comments appreciated, while I sit here hosing down my workstation.
I hear you Sails. But she's fighting for her career, some leeway can be given. Minority government, an awful position for any PM to be in....I sometimes wonder if she has some sort of delusional mental health issues. With a couple of family members with mental health problems, there are some astounding similarities.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/pm-feeling-green-about-bob/story-fn6ck45n-1226032162504Senator Brown yesterday said Ms Gillard's comments were an "unfortunate, unwarranted, gratuitous insult".
"I think, for some reason, the Prime Minister has turned her fire on the very people who have supported her in government," he said.
"It is not becoming of a Prime Minister to be talking in those words about millions of other Australians."
"It's just not uniting. It's divisive, that sort of language."
Either way I would say they are shooting each other in the left foot.
Except Wayne Swann, he doesn't know which one is the left foot.
Thought it was a reasonable effort
Now doesn't Lindsay Tanner look good! If they'd overcome their petty infighting and put Mr Tanner in as leader they'd not be suffering the ignominy they are at present.I hear you Sails. But she's fighting for her career, some leeway can be given. Minority government, an awful position for any PM to be in.
If there is blame to be apportioned, it's to the caucus -what were they thinking. Blinded by ideology and genderism.
Lindsay Tanner read the tea leaves and bailed, one of the the government's best money men. He's looking like a genius now.
I don't think it's a put up job, noco, though understand why you would suggest that.Is the 'HONEYMOON' over between she and the Greens or is it a 'put-up job?
Is Gillard starting to realize how the Greens are pulling Labor down or is it a front to try to distant herself from the Green's radical policies?
Either way I would say they are shooting each other in the left foot.
As Abbott says, "Labor is in Government, but the Greens hold the power".
It's just a lover's tiff. No marriage is perfect. Bob Brown holds all the aces and he knows it. He is the dominant partner.
Now doesn't Lindsay Tanner look good! ...
Maybe it's our turn to keep calling for Lindsay Tanner to return as labor leader in return for labor supporters continual calling for Turnbul to return...lol
I suspect that Tanner is much too sensible to be wanted as a labor PM.
Nah, I want to call on Tanner to be leader of the Liberal party..
Sounds fair... Turnbull and Tanner could switch sides?
I don't know a lot about Tanner, but he certainly appeared to stand out as being the better of the four eggs in the kitchen....
And Sinner, shame on you. Where is all your patriotism, that innate quality which was supposed to be stirred beyond measure by your Leader's emotional utterings.
I do not know much about him (Lindsay Tanner), but would suggest he is a man of vision and integrity.
I base that on the fact that he saw right through Gillard and her tactics.
So it was see you later Juliar.
Cheers.
If I can be forgiven for name-dropping from behind my internet anonymity: I knew Tanner from his student days, with the odd renewal of acquaintance since: he is in fact a very decent and intelligent chap. I never have caught up with any inside gossip on why he left parliament: what little I've heard is that he was simply exhausted (which is basically the same as the official line).
So I don't hold out any hopes of his return, which really is a pity, because the ALP cabinet is 30% poorer for his absence.
As for Prime Minister Gillard (with whom I am entirely unacquainted), there's been the rare glimmer of humanity and intelligence behind the veneer, but too little. She needs to sack every last one of her personal advisors, shoot the speechwriter (who the hell is that jerk?) dismiss the spivs from cabinet - hmm, as Rowan Williams would say "my god: there are a lot of you ..." and try being, dare I say, the real Julia ...
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