Anthony Albanese: 'A better future for all Australians', election victory speech - 2022

21 May 2022, Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL Club, Sydney, Australia

I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. And on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I commit to the Uluru Statement from the heart in full.

And I say to my fellow Australians, thank you for this extraordinary honour. Tonight, the Australian people have voted for change. I am humbled by this victory and I'm honoured to be given the opportunity to serve as the 31st prime minister of Australia.

My Labor team will work every day to bring Australians together. And I will lead a government worthy of the people of Australia. A government as courageous and hardworking and caring as the Australian people are themselves.

Earlier tonight, Scott Morrison called me to congratulate myself and the Labor Party on our victory at the election.

Scott, very graciously, wished me well. And I thanked him for that and I wish him well. And I thank him for the service that he has given to our country as Prime Minister.

I also want to acknowledge and thank Jenny Morrison and their two daughters for their contribution and sacrifice as well.

My fellow Australians, it says a lot about our great country that a son of a single mum who was a disability pensioner, who grew up in public housing down the road in Camperdown can stand before you tonight as Australia's prime minister.

Every parent wants more for the next generation than they had. My mother dreamt of a better life for me. And I hope that my journey in life inspires Australians to reach for the stars.

I want Australia to continue to be a country that no matter where you live, who you worship, who you love or what your last name is, that places no restrictions on your journey in life. My fellow Australians, I think they've got the name by now. I think they've got that.

I know at the beginning of the campaign they said people didn't know me but I reckon they've got it.

During this campaign, I have put forward a positive, clear plan for a better future for our country. And I have shared the two principles that will be part of a government that I lead.

No one left behind because we should always look after the disadvantaged and the vulnerable. But also no one held back, because we should always support aspiration and opportunity. That is what my government will do.

That is the what, but the how is also just as important? Because I want to bring Australians together.

I want to seek our common purpose and promote unity and not fear and -- optimism, not fear and division. It is what I have sought to do throughout my political life. And what I will bring to the leadership of our country, it is a show of strength to collaborate and work with people, not weakness.

I want to find that common ground where together we can plant our dreams. To unite around our shared love of this country, our shared faith in Australia's future, our shared values of fairness and opportunity, and hard work and kindness to those in need.

And I can promise all Australians this — no matter how you voted today, the government I lead will respect every one of you every day. And I'll seek to get your vote next time.

We are the greatest country on earth. But we can have an even better future if we seize the opportunities that are right there in front of us. The opportunity to shape change, rather than be shaped by it. And we can shape change more effectively if we seek to you knowing people on that journey of change.

Together we can end the climate wars. Together we can take advantage of the opportunity for Australia to be a renewable energy superpower. Together we can work in common interests with business and unions to drive productivity, lift wages and profits.

I want an economy that works for people, not the other way around. Together we can as a country say that all of us, if the Fair Work Commission doesn't cut the wage of minimum aged workers, we can say that we welcome that absolutely. Together we can strengthen universal healthcare through Medicare.

We can protect universal superannuation. And we can write universal childcare into that proud tradition. Together we can fix the crisis in aged care. Together we can make forward equal opportunity for women a national economic and social priority. Together we can and will establish a national anti-corruption commission. Together we can be a self-reliant, resilient nation, confident in our values and in our place in the world. And together we can embrace the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

We can answer its patient, gracious call for a voice enshrined in our constitution. Because all of us ought to be proud that amongst our great multicultural society we count the oldest living continuous culture in the world. And I acknowledge Australia's next Indigenous Affairs Minister, Linda Burney, who is here.

My fellow Australians, no one gets here by themselves. And I wouldn't be standing here tonight without the support, hard work and belief of so many people. To my parliamentary team, including my Deputy, Richard Marles, and my Senate leader, Penny Wong. My terrific economic team led by Jim Chalmers and Katy Gallagher.

On Monday morning, arrangements are in place to have these people sworn in as members of my team. To enable Penny and I to attend the important Quad leader's meeting in Tokyo, with President Biden, Prime Minister Kishida and Prime Minister Modi. And I want the leaders of the economic team to start work on Monday morning as well.

I wanted to thank my shadow ministry and my amazing caucus members, including the people who are here tonight at this joint function in the corner of our seats, including Tony Burke, who is here. I want to thank all of our Labor candidates. I want to thank all those who have worked so hard for this victory.

We stand on your shoulders, most rank and file members of the Labor Party will never ask for anything. They knock on doors, they make calls, they work so hard. They hand out how to votes. They push the cause of Labor at the local P & C, the local kid's footy, the local netball, when they're shopping in the supermarket, when they talk to their neighbours.

I thank each and every one of the true believers of the Australian Labor Party.

And I proudly thank the members of the mighty trade union movement.

I do want to thank my campaign director, our amazing national secretary, Paul Erickson, and his team. My staff are led by my first campaign director back in 1996. And my electorate office team who haven't seen that much of me, who look after this electorate led by Helen Rogers. Thank you very much.

But to all those — and I'm not going to name them because there's too many — there's a lot of people who believed in me and backed me over many decades in this great movement to be where I am today. You know who you are and I know who you are and I thank you.

I said I've been underestimated my whole life during the campaign. Now while all that is true, I have also been lifted up by others who saw something in me and who encouraged me in life on this journey.

And I pledged to the Australian people here tonight, I am here not to occupy the space, but to make a positive difference each and every day.

And to the amazing diverse people of Grayndler. All politics is local. And in 1996, there were various people who wrote off the chances of Labor holding on to that seat. This is my 10th election. And I want to say thank you for placing your faith in me. It is an absolute honour to be your voice in our national parliament.

To my partner, Jodie, thank you for coming into my life and for sharing this journey.

And to my proudest achievement, my son, Nathan. Thank you, mate, for your love and support. Your mother, who's here tonight, Carmel, we are both so proud of the caring, wonderful, smart young man you have become. Love you, Nathan.

To my Mum, who's beaming down on us. Thank you. And I hope there are families in public housing watching this tonight. Because I want every parent to be able to tell their child no matter where you live or where you come from, in Australia the doors of opportunity are open to us all.

And like every other Labor government, we'll just widen that door a bit more. Friends, we have made history tonight. And tomorrow, together, we begin the work of building a better future. A better future for all Australians. Thank you very much."

Peter Malinauskas: 'The Liberal Party are not our enemies', Election night victory - 2022

19 March 2022, Adelaide, South Australia

To our friends men and women of Labor, to the people of South Australia.

I stand here with my feet firmly on the lands of the Kaurna people. I pay my respects to their elders past present and emerging, but the way we pay our respects first and foremost, is not with our words, but with our deeds. And I affirm to each and every one of you here tonight, and the people across our state, that I very much look forward to, for the first time in the history of our Federation, having an initiated Aboriginal man leading our state's Aboriginal affairs movement, but also actively delivering on a state based voice treaty and truth for the Aboriginal people of our state.

Only only a few short moments ago. I received a telephone call from Steven Marshall. Stephen Marshall's call was utterly generous. It was gracious. And it was done with the class that we have become incredibly familiar with. Stephen Marshall has been the leader of the Liberal party in South Australia for nine years including four years as premier. And that is a very significant contribution to his party, and to our state. And we very much thank him for it

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Liberal Party of Australia. The Liberal Party of Australia is an essential component of our Federation. It's essential component of our democratic process. And I take this opportunity, this is important, I take this opportunity to acknowledge that the Liberal Party are not our enemies. They may be our adversary. They may be our adversary, but they are not our enemies. And we thank them, on what is a significant tonight for them too. There are a lot of there are a lot of MPs and candidates tonight who have not been successful at this election, and in our democracy, that is a particularly difficult price to pay. And I want to acknowledge all of the families of those MPs who have lost their positions tonight. Politics is a tough business. And while we are right to be proud of our efforts tonight, we should acknowledge the hard work of others.

But first and foremost I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of South Australia. It is not lost on me, the significance of the privilege and the size of the responsibility that you invested in me in my team. Which means for my all of my MPs tonight, particularly the newly minted ones, and I'm incredibly proud of each and every one of them, it means that we've got a big job to do.

I think sometimes on election nights, when governments change hands, that the successful party can confuse the elation of electoral success with an inflated sense of achievement. Naturally people of South Australian Labor are right to feel satisfied tonight, but true satisfaction for us comes in realising our ambition, our ideal of delivering a fairer, better society and more opportunity for those who need it most.

To that end, I do believe that we have the policy and the plan to realise that ambition, but more than that, I know that I lead the team to deliver it. I want to thank one of the most intelligent, compassionate, hardworking, and reliable people I've ever met in my entire life, our great deputy leader, and future deputy premier, Susan Close.

[ 'Susan, Susan']

If we were cheeky, we'd be cheering out 'Dr. Susan', but that's another thing. People may not know, but Susan has been working so diligently behind the scenes compiling our policy effort, which is substantial. And I simply would not have been able to be here tonight without her. So thank you very much, Susan.

In the next parliament of South Australia, there will be a, a new longest serving MP. It's characterised as 'the father of the house'. And I do want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the longer serving MP in our parliament now. An individual that has been in serving in the parliament, have I get this maths right, for over 25 years. Every team needs a lion, and in Labor we have a loyal Labor lion in the honourable Tom Kousantonis. I've known Tom for a while, but, and we don't always agree, and when we when we disagree, it can get interesting. But the thing about about Tom is that he and I, like every other South Australian are utterly committed to our families and the long term future of our state. And I thank him for his service.

To the whole of my parliamentary team though. the confidence that you've invested in me from the moment I became leader has provided me with the greatest privilege of my life — up until a couple of hours ago— and I thank you for the confidence that you invested in me too.

To the most successful campaign director in Australia, Mr. Reggie, Martin,

Reggie Reggie, Reggie

Reggie,and I met in an old beat up Hyundai Excel, driving around visiting night workers many, many years ago. And it's hard to believe we're here today. But Reggie has been a, a loyal servant of the party for a long time. He is been campaign director for three separate elections. He's won two out of three of them, and I say two outta three ain't bad, Reggie. So well done.

The leader of the opposition, isn't blessed with the an abundant array of resources, so you rely on the few staff that you, that you have. And each, every one of my staff have been truly exceptional over the last four years and I thank them all. But they've been, ablely led by the hardest worker I know anywhere in the Labor movement, my good mate John Bistrovic. So thank you very much John.

To to all the volunteers that dedicate themselves to a night like tonight, but also doing some good in the Labor Party, we can't do it without you. I thank each and every one of you.

To Every every single Labor leader in the history of our great party, always stands on the shoulders of giants. And in the case of the Australian Labor party, those giants are millions of hardworking men and women across this country, ably represented by the Australian trade union movement. It takes a lot of courage to represent your fellow worker and sometimes put yourself in harm's way. And tonight I do want to particularly acknowledge all those hardworking people within our health system. Every doctor, every nurse, every hospital orderly, they've all served us so incredibly well during the pandemic, but a particular shout-out tonight to our ambos.

But Labor at its best, always, always embraces the notion that to achieve the right balance between the interests of capital and Labor, then hardworking individual contractors, sole traders, small and medium business owners, then they are equally as important to our ambitions for a fair society as any other of Labor's traditional constituencies. So I acknowledge them as well.

To my mother, Kate, who's here somewhere. To my mother, Kate and her late parents Bob and Ursula, to my father, Peter and his late parents, Peter and Etta.They've taught me everything I know and taught me the value of hard work, and I can't thank you enough. I'd also like to acknowledge my parents in law, Robin and Vicki and collectively that unit represents the most professional babysitters you've ever met in your entire life. And I thank them for all their hard work

Friends, there's a there's a quote that I think in Australian democracy, in western liberal democracy around the world, we should reflect on a little bit more often. It comes from a retired Supreme Court justice by the name of Felix Frankfurter. He famously said that 'the highest office in any democracy is the office of citizen'. When it comes to our democracy, there's never a truer word spoken. I think sometimes we are vulnerable to taking that for granted. This morning, I experienced the most humbling moment of the campaign. This morning, I was at Woodville Gardens polling booth, and I arrived there with Retab and Michelis Atahali, Syrian refugees who only six months ago became citizens of Australia. They were voting for the first time today.

They came, they came from a town just outside of Aleppo where their home was bombed only a years ago. Everything they had was lost. They had a young son, and they had nowhere to live. They fled to Lebanon where they waited for four or five years trying to find a permanent place they could call home. And it was Australia that opened our heart to this beautiful Syrian family, who by then had grown to having three children. And they came to this nation seeking one thing above all else, the opportunity to have a say on their destiny and their future. And today, as Annabel and I lined up at the polling booth next to them, it struck me —here I was, as the leader of their Labor party, the alternate premier of the state, standing next to this beautiful couple who were voting for the very first time, who came here with nothing to their name. And at that very moment, as we were standing next to each other, our votes were worth exactly the same. One could sense the hope, the desire, the aspiration that their votes, their votes had the power to deliver a better society, a fairer future, not just for themselves, but for their children and their children. The democratic ritual is one that we should never take for granted, particularly now, more than ever, at this special moment in time, we get one shot to recover from a global pandemic as a state and as a nation.

And when we look back on this moment in 20 years time, let them say that this generation was the new reconstruction generation. Let them say that we took this opportunity to deliver an economy that left noone behind. Let them say that we took this opportunity to invest in education, training, and skills so that every young person could fulfil their potential. Let them say, Let them say that this generation realised the opportunity of a clean energy future and all the jobs it can provide. Let them say, that we had a generational investment in health and mental health to ensure that people call Triple Zero, the ambulance rolls up on time.

Let them say, let them say that in this moment, this most unique occasion, that this generation decided not just to think about the next four years, but for the next generation to live out on that truly egalitarian, Australian ideal that we care for others more than we care for ourselves. Thank you very much.