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The real decision which the people of Australia are called upon to make at this election is one of values. The Labor Party declares that the immediate task of statesmanship is to overcome the forces which are undermining the moral, social and economic foundations of civilisation. It affirms that the level of social well-being is the crucial test of economic policy and that peace is an idle dream without social justice between nations and between individuals. The primary purpose of Governments is...

On 25 October Australians will elect a national government to take Australia into the 1970s. The campaign of the Australian Labor Party will have one dominant theme: the theme of opportunities, the taking of opportunities, the making of opportunities for Australia and for all Australians. We wish to renovate, rejuvenate, reinvigorate and liberate. It is not only time, more than time, for a change; it is time to refresh, remould and renew the whole framework of finances and functions and to end...

Men and women of Australia, Just 17 months ago, I stood here, and from this place and from this city I asked you to choose for Australia a new team, a new program, a new drive for equality of opportunities. You gave us a clear mandate to go ahead with our program for the next three years. For 17 months we have driven ourselves to carry out your mandate, to carry out the program I placed before you. Now the government you elected for three years has been interrupted in mid-career. Our program has...

Australians have never had a clearer choice than at this election. It is the Liberal Party that is preserving and building a free society. It is the Liberal Party that is working to fulfil the hopes of all Australians. It is the Liberal Party alone that can keep building for the future. We govern for all Australians whether their families have lived here for generations or only a few years. We encourage all Australians to contribute their best to the best nation on earth. This election gives...

And the first pledge I now make, a commitment which embraces every other undertaking, is that everything we do as a Government will have the one great goal - to reunite this great community of ours, to bring out the best we are truly capable of, together, as a nation, and bring Australia together to win our way through the crisis into which the policies of the past and the men of the past have plunged our country. For the facts are there – stark and grim – for every Australian to see seven years...

My fellow Australians, When from this place in February 1983 I first asked for your support, I sought from you an act of great trust. Our nation was then in deep crisis – the worst economic crisis for more than fifty years, and a searing crisis of the national spirit, after a decade of confrontation and division. Unprecedented circumstances demanded unprecedented responses. Therefore, on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I asked for your support, your co-operation – and your active...

My friends, fellow Australians, The message I bring to you today is a message of confidence in the future of Australia, and a renewed commitment to a better, fairer future for all Australians. It is a message based firmly on realism the realism and substance of our policies for the future the fact that the tough and hard decisions we have had to make for the good of Australia are starting to work the fact that we are building together a nation of opportunity, fairness and security and above all...

Politics is not about abstract theories. It is about people and how they want to live their lives. Sir Robert Menzies, founder of the Liberal Party, once said that a government must remember ‘the forgotten people’. Today, as Australia moves into the new decade, that mission is more important than ever. In the past few years, Australia has become a ship without a rudder. The fundamental truth is that our physical, human and financial resources are not being used in the most effective manner...

It is with an immense amount of personal pride and also an enormous amount of humility that I bring together today the essential argument as to why, after 13 long and difficult years, this nation of ours needs emphatically a change of government. Thirteen years is a long time in anyone’s language, but I don’t ask that the Government be turned out simply because it’s been in power for 13 years. When Labor came to power Australia owed the rest of the world about $23,000 million. We now owe the...

Peter Costello, Chris McDiven, my parliamentary colleagues and my fellow Australians. This campaign, more than any other that I have been involved in, is very much about the future of the Australia we know and the Australia we love so much. The one single, irrefutable question that must be asked and answered by the Australian people on the 10th of November is who is better able to lead Australia over the next three years into difficult, challenging but times and circumstances which ought not to...

Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer, my Lord Mayor, my Ministerial and Parliamentary colleagues, my fellow Australians. I want first of all to say how proud I am to be delivering this speech on behalf of a great and strong and enduring Coalition between the Liberal Party and the National Party. Our two great parties have shared 11 and a half years in office, and we have fought for the best interests of the Australian people, wherever they might live, and the speeches you heard earlier from Peter...

Let there be no mistake. This is the most important election in memory. Today we stand against radical right-wing proposals which are hostile to fundamental Australian beliefs and Australian institutions and all that we have achieved in recent years. Not new proposals, but old ones. Proposals which have been tried in other countries and which in every case have failed – at great social and economic cost. Dr. Hewson says these other countries did not try hard enough. He is nothing if not zealous...