Page 86 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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I am here because I believe in equality and human rights. I joined the Labor Party in 2001, just after the Tampa election, when I was working at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on immigration policy. I did my job professionally and served the government of the day but, frankly, I was appalled by the idea that a government would use desperate people as a wedge to divide our community.
Governments, in my view, have a responsibility to the people they serve to promote harmony, not division; understanding, not fear; compassion, not blame. Governments and oppositions that seek to divide us for political gain—rich versus poor, home owners versus renters; new arrivals versus long-term citizens—do themselves no credit and our community no favours.
Finally, Madam Assistant Speaker, I am Labor because Labor is the party of the future; the party of progress and big ideas. In my own electorate, massive urban renewal is taking place. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We have one chance to get it right. We must listen to the people we serve and we must seek out the voices of those who are otherwise unlikely to be heard. We must respect and preserve our heritage, we must pursue excellence in urban design and we must require developers to deliver high quality spaces where people want to spend time. It became something of a catchcry of mine during the campaign but I truly do believe that vibrant, sustainable, inclusive cities do not just happen. They are built by governments with a vision for a better future.
As I draw to a close, there is someone I must acknowledge, someone who should be here but is not. It is just over a year since my partner, Michael, took his own life. He was 44 years old, a highly intelligent person, who had lived through fascinating times and had big plans for the future.
I met Michael in Washington, and he moved with me to Canberra in 2014, but he struggled to find work. It was hard, not being a citizen, being someone with specialised expertise, and arriving at the tail end of a big federal government job cut where lots of people were looking for work.
In May 2015 Michael moved back to DC to what he thought would be a better job market, but by October he had been without a secure job for almost a year. He was doing contract work but he was conscious of the fact that without a permanent job he had no security, and in the US he had no health insurance. By his own choice, he was socially isolated; he had few friends in DC and no-one he could really confide in.
Then something happened that stripped him of hope and pushed him over the edge. Until that moment I was one of the fortunate people to whom nothing really bad had ever happened. Last November changed that, and it changed me—not in a big way, but in many small ways, one of which is that I cry even more easily than I used to.
Most importantly, the last year has given me an entirely new appreciation of what love and friendship really mean and what a powerful difference they make in the world. It has made me realise that my real good fortune is not in wealth or education or even intelligence or talent of any kind. My real good fortune lies in having grown
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