Each election, Prime Ministerial candidates lay out their parties’ platforms in campaign speeches. These speeches are more than just historical records; they tell us about national concerns and political obsessions, wars and drought, industry and society. They speak to – and in some cases, exploit – our aspirations and our fears. We’ve collected speeches by successful and unsuccessful candidates from every election from 1901 right up to the present day.

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Kevin Rudd

Australian Labor Party

Delivered at Brisbane, Qld, September 1st, 2013

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Tony Abbott

Liberal/National coalition

Delivered at Brisbane, Qld, August 25th, 2013

Read Speech

Here is a sample of the data visualisations available on our explore page.

This graph highlights the frequency of the usage of the word over time.