Remarks to Queensland Labor Rally

Thank you for that Welcome to Country.

As the author of the National Apology, I look forward to the implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart as we advance our national journey towards reconciliation between the first Australians and all Australians.

I welcome Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Premier of Queensland.

I welcome, Richard Marles, the Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party.

I welcome Queensland’s own Jim Chalmers, Labor’s Shadow Treasurer.

I welcome all other federal and state Labor members, past and present.

And most importantly, I welcome the leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, who will address us shortly.

Fellow Australians,

Fellow Queenslanders,

Fellow residents of this, our great city of Brisbane,

There is a mood for change right across this great nation.

In this campaign I’ve been in Far North Queensland, South East Queensland, Western Sydney, inner Sydney, inner Melbourne, the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. You can feel it in the air right across Australia–the mood for change is real. After close to ten long years in office, the people of Australia are fed up to the back teeth with Morison’s Liberals.

They’re fed up with the corruption.

They’re fed up with the incompetence.

They’re fed up with the blame game.

They’re fed up with this bloke who doesn’t hold a hose.

And they’re fed up with a government that has zero plan for Australia’s future.

Zero plan for the economy and rebuilding manufacturing.

Zero plan for the future of our national security.

Zero plan for managing cost of living pressures on families.

Zero plan for climate change.

And zero plan for aged care, disability care, Medicare, health care–in fact anything that ends with the word ‘care’–because the truth is, they don’t care.

And that’s why the people of Australia want to toss this mob out.

My fellow Queenslanders, I’m also asking you today to think for a moment about what Australia could be–what it can be–what sort of future we can build together.

With a decent government there can be a better future for all Australians, not just another three years of the same.

We can have a better future with a leader who shows up, who takes responsibility, who doesn’t slide off to Hawaii on holiday when half the country is on fire, hoping that nobody would notice, but instead have a leader who says to the nation, this is my job and I accept responsibility for it.

We can have a leader who actually works with the states, and who doesn’t simply blame the states for anything that goes wrong.

We can have a leader who builds things up, and doesn’t just knock things down.

We can have a leader whose record in government over many years as one of our most senior Cabinet ministers, is one of building things, getting stuff done, and getting it done on time and on budget.

My fellow Queenslanders, to secure a better future for us all, that leader is Anthony Albanese.

Friends, speaking of leaders who build things up, and then thinking for those who just knock things down–did you see Scotty from Marketing’s most recent attempt at personal rebranding?

Seriously?

With one week to go before an election, Scotty from Marketing says, “I’m not going to be a bulldozer anymore”.

Scotty from Marketing says, hand on heart, ‘forget the fact that I bulldozed Medicare, I bulldozed aged care, I bulldozed health care, I bulldozed disability care, I bulldozed climate care, and I bulldozed and buried the NBN.’

Scotty is now hoping we can wave a magic wand, conjure up the fairies at the bottom of the garden, and hey presto, vote for me after nearly ten years in office, because I promise to be a softer, gentler Scotty in the future.

Pigs might fly.

This guy really takes the Australian people for mugs.

In the most remarkable political con job I’ve seen in my career, Morrison is actually saying ‘vote for me, and I promise to have a personality change’.

What planet is this guy on?

We all know a leopard never changes its spots (other than in Scotty’s personal imaginary world of words, images and marketing gumph).

My fellow Australians,

My fellow Queenslanders,

This mob have run out of puff, they’ve run out of energy, they’ve run out of ideas–and if we really want to have a better future for Australia, we must now change the government of Australia.

I’m here today to render my one hundred and ten per cent support for Anthony Albanese and his Labor team.

I do so because I’ve known Albo for twenty five years.

And over those twenty five years–as a friend, and as a colleague–I know for a fact that Albo is the real deal.

I’ve also worked with him, day-in, day-out, as one of the most senior ministers in our government–as the minister for infrastructure, delivering more than fifty billion dollars’ worth of road, rail and port projects right across this nation.

For those of us in Queensland, it was Albo who delivered the Redcliffe Rail Link, which previous governments had dreamt of doing for more than one hundred years.

It was Albo who built the Gold Coast light rail, because Surfers Paradise needed it, not because it was a Labor seat.

It was Albo who began the early planning for the Cross-River Rail, which will revolutionise public transport in the City of Brisbane.

And it was Albo who removed major death traps along the Bruce Highway–not because these were target seats, but because it was the right thing to do.

Friends, for Queensland’s future, and with the enormous infrastructure build we now face for the decade ahead leading up to the 2032 Olympics, Queensland can have no better in partner in Canberra than an Albanese Labor Government–because by instinct, by nature, and by predisposition, Albo is the nation-builder that Queensland needs.

My fellow Queenslanders, to elect this Albanese Labor Government we must also elect federal Labor members here in Queensland.

And that starts right here in Brisbane. It starts right here in the federal seat of Brisbane. And it starts with the next federal member for Brisbane. Please welcome Madonna Jarrett.