During our period of office, we have seen increases in wealth in trade, in the areas of crops, in banking assets and banking deposits in savings, bank deposits in the number of depositors, in marriages, in births and in immigration. We have built, manned and equipped an Australian navy with our own money, and established an effective defence force.
March 31st, 1913
defence economy communications and technology federal capital federal-state relations foreign affairs health industrial relations infrastructure social security trade White Australia policyAnd as we look to the future of our children, let’s not forget the greatest intergenerational challenge of them all—saving our planet. Australia must play a role in the international struggle against global warming. Our national icons are at stake: The coral bleaching and destruction of the Great Barrier Reef; The flooding of Kakadu National Park with salt water. No responsible leader could stand by and watch these things happen.
September 29th, 2004
climate change economy education employment environment health social securityTax reform is fundamentally important to what we’ve got to do in Australia. It’s fundamentally important to developing the productive culture that we need in Australia, it’s fundamentally important, not only to get people to work harder, to work overtime, to save, to build a business. Tax reform is absolutely fundamental.
March 1st, 1993
economy education employment health industrial relations social security infrastructureSeptember 1st, 2013
climate change economy employment foreign affairs health immigration industrial relations infrastructure social securityThere is no one magic source for that security and opportunity. It is not good enough to mouth assurances that they will somehow magically trickle down from on high, or emerge out of some soulless economic machine. If a tax looks like it is going to hurt, that is because it will. Governments cause pain frequently enough, even when they don’t mean to, and there is no mystical virtue in accepting pain for pain’s sake.
September 23rd, 1998
economy education employmentThis election is being held at a time when the international situation is most ominous. War and internecine strife are raging in Asia and Europe. Jealousy, suspicion and fear of the intentions of neighbouring nations threaten Europe. Parliamentary Government has been challenged and, in many cases, overthrown; the liberties of the people have been trampled underfoot.
September 28th, 1937
economy employment family health immigration social securityThe greatest legacy that this Government has given the Australian nation over the last eight and a half years is the strongest, best performing economy that we have seen since World War II.
It has not happened by accident. It’s not a fluke. It’s not been done by signing pieces of cardboard. It has been done by hard work and difficult decisions. And again let me remind you, it’s been done in the teeth of tenacious opposition from the Labor Party to virtually every fundamental reform that we have tried to bring about.
September 26th, 2004
defence economy foreign affairs crime education family healthLet me now speak about the Australia of today. It is a country of the young. Every second Australian is under 29. This means that most of the problems of our country are those of growth… The growing up of so many young Australians, better educated, more independently-minded, national in outlook, and determined to play a more independent role in world affairs.
November 14th, 1972
defence economy education employment foreign affairs health immigration infrastructure social security trade womenBy 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty.
And to this end, my Government will establish a new program of family help – a program designed to lift more than 1 million Australian children into security and to help the more than half a million Australian families in greatest need, the hardest pushed, the most disadvantaged.
June 23rd, 1987
economy family defence education employment health social securityThe great vital problems that confront us in Australia today are principally these:- Industrial unrest; increase cost of living; operations of trusts and combines. They are interactionary both in their relationship and their effect.
July 6th, 1914
defence economy industrial relations social security