48TH NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY
ADELAIDE
MONDAY, 17 DECEMBER2018
I want to start by giving a shout out to everybody who's come to this conference in Adelaide from Regional and Rural Australia.
You ensure that Labor's platform and Labor's policy not only reflects the aspirations of people in the cities and the suburbs but people from the regions and the bush as well.Now this conference and this platform will send a clear message to people in Regional Australia and the bush that labor backs you.
The challenge for people in Regional and Rural Australia is if you like it like our policies, if you like what we want to do, you can't hope one way and vote the other.
If you want to see Labor's platform delivered you've got to ensure that you are returning Labor candidates in Rural and Regional Australia.
Labor is the only party that was founded on the principle of addressing inequality.
Whether it was wages, whether it was access to pensions or access to health care that has been our mission and it continues to be our mission.
The problem with the National Party is they simply do not get it.
Unless it has four legs and poos in a paddock, they do not understand the issue.
Labor does.
Labor will ensure that we are investing in infrastructure, that we are resourcing our local councils, that we are investing in road and rail, but also the railway of the 21st century, which is the National Broadband Network.
We cannot tolerate a situation where the poorest people in Australia are paying the most for their broadband and that is the situation under this Government.
Labor will ensure that this does not continue.
The problem with the National Party is they have no clear policy.
They talk about decentralisation at the same time as they sack over 1,200 public servants who are working in Regional and Rural Australia, but they want a pat on the back for relocating a hundred public servants from one capital city to another.
This cannot stand.
Our message to Regional Australia is if you like the Labor platform, if you like the Labor policy, you can't hope one way and vote the other. You've got to vote for the Labor policies.
