E&OE.
Friends, it’s fantastic to be here with you today. Would you give another round of applause to this amazing man, Tom White.
I’m incredibly proud to be here today in your company.
As I look around, there are stalwarts of our Party, people who have given to this cause, to this state, to this country for, in many cases, their entire adult life.
You’ve been through campaigns. You’ve been through wins and losses, the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations that politics can often bring.
But you are here today because you believe more than ever in this great state and in this great country and in this great candidate and I want to say thank you very much for that.
Can I acknowledge some of my colleagues here today – obviously, the amazing Michaelia Cash, who just only has forward and reverse – I’ve never seen her in reverse. It’s forward full time. So Michaelia, thank you for your beautiful words before.
Thank you to Dean Smith and to Matt O’Sullivan for being here as well – two wonderful colleagues.
Part of the reason that we’re in such strong shape at the moment, part of the reason why we have momentum and part of the reason why I think we can win the next election is because we look like a credible alternative.
We have, for the last two and a half years, had a sense of discipline and purpose, and we’ve adhered to the values that Robert Menzies envisaged when he established this fine Party.
We’ve stayed the course, and we’ve kept pressure on a bad Government, and we’ve done that because of the stoicism of my colleagues – and I want to say thank you to those who are here today and those who are here in spirit and working in other campaigns across the state and indeed across the country – I wouldn’t be in the position that I am today leading this Party without their support, and it’s something that I’ll never forget.
I also want to acknowledge today Libby Mettam, who I think has a wonderful – indefatigable has to be the description for Libby Mettam. She doesn’t give in either and she has a tenacity and she has your respect and she’s fast building the respect of West Australians as well. She deserves success if anybody does. It’s a tough race, there’s is no question about that. But somebody who holds her head high and stands up for what we believe in. Libby, it’s wonderful to be here with you today as well, so thank you.
There are two former champion Premiers of this great state, Richard Court and Colin Barnett, two friends and confidantes and people that I’ve admired for a long period of time and helped establish and continue some of the great success stories of the WA economy. I really pay tribute to them today as well. So, thank you both for being here.
A couple of questions I think we should start with, if you don’t mind today. The question that you can ask and you can hopefully answer for me today on behalf of your neighbours and people in your business and people you know within your friendship group and whether they live here, or across any part of the country:
“Are you better off today than you were two and a half years ago?”
“Do you feel that we’re a more secure nation than we were two and a half years ago?”
“Do you feel that we’re a safer, more collegiate, more united nation than we were two and a half years ago?”
A lot’s changed in the last two and a half years.
You might be surprised to hear me say that I want to channel a little bit of Paul Keating – and I just want to say it quickly, get it off my chest and I’ll promise that I won’t repeat it – but it was Keating who said; “when you change the government, you change the country”.
And in 2022, people weren’t happy with the Liberal Party. They weren’t happy with some of the decisions that we’d taken over the course of that three year term of government and they were aching for a change.
Anthony Albanese was elected because he wasn’t the Liberal leader at the time, he wasn’t anybody but somebody who they thought was just going to continue – as Kevin Rudd promised in 2007 – the economic settings and the security settings that we know Liberal Party’s and Coalition’s so well fore.
But when you look from day one where this Prime Minister has taken our country, Australians are worse off and many Australians are much worse off.
We started this morning on quite a sombre note.
We sat with members of the Jewish community and the broader community in support of that community to mark the 80 year anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The attack that took place on the 7th of October against Israel, as you know, was the biggest attack on the Jewish population since the Holocaust, where six million people were slaughtered.
There are still people held in captive today, including young women. It doesn’t bear thinking what they’ve gone through in that tunnel network and in captivity over the course of the last 15 months.
That was a test for our Prime Minister because the Australian Prime Minister should never, ever leave any Australian on the field.
The Australian Prime Minister should stand up for our values and treat everybody with respect and treat every Australian equally – but that is not what has happened over the course of the last two and a half years.
There are people who have survived the Holocaust, have lived in our country since 1945 and believe now that our country is less safe than any time between 1945 and today.
That is a national disgrace.
People were allowed to occupy our university campuses and spew out hate and anti-Semitism and racism and continue to cross red lines.
Our Prime Minister didn’t do anything about it, and our country is less safe as a result of that today.
They brought in 3,000 people from a war zone controlled by a terrorist organisation listed in this country without doing the requisite checks, brought people in on tourist visas. Many of those people have now claimed protection, they’ll be on their way to permanent residency and citizenship in no time.
The Government allowed over 200 criminals to be released into the community, people who had committed rape and murder, people who’d committed sexual offences against children, people who’d been involved in drug trafficking and preying on our young Australians.
They released them from immigration detention.
It turns out they didn’t need to.
Knife crime is rampant, particularly with young Australians in gangs at the moment.
We are a less safe society, but there are so many families at the moment, including small business families who have suffered most under this Prime Minister.
Twenty seven thousand small businesses have gone into bankruptcy over the course of the last two and a half years.
There’s been a threefold increase in the number of manufacturing businesses which have closed on Anthony Albanese’s watch.
People are leaving our country to go and set up their businesses in Malaysia or in Tennessee or in Ontario, in other places across the world where they’re paying one third the cost of electricity that we are here.
Electricity and gas are up over 30 per cent in this country.
Food and insurance premiums are up by double digits.
So, Australians do feel less safe and do feel less secure, particularly in their own finances.
I started out my parliamentary career in 2001 – its a long time ago, and as you can tell, if you’re doing the maths, it does look like much longer than 23 years.
I had the great opportunity to get a leg up from John Howard at an early age – I was about 32 years of age.
I was the Assistant Treasurer to Peter Costello, and I’ve worked alongside Prime Ministers since John Howard and I have watched on the other side those who have performed well and those who have let our country down.
I’ve had the great honour of serving as the Defence Minister of this most amazing country, and as the Home Affairs Minister, and as the Health Minister and as the Sport Minister – I might say the Sports Portfolio is the best portfolio that you could have.
I bring to this job a breadth of experience, as does my team.
Michaelia in government, many of our frontbench members who have worked in senior portfolios in the national security space, in the economic space, and we have an opportunity at the next election to right the wrongs of the last two and a half years, to make Australians feel safer, to build our economy, to help those small businesses not close but prosper, to employ more people, and to grow our economy and our country and provide support to those who are less fortunate than us.
If we get the chance, whenever it might come in April or May of this year, I believe that we can get our country back on track.
We want to make sure that we can fight the cost of living pressures, that we can build a stronger economy, that we can back small business, that we can help build a strong and secure health system, cut government waste and spending that is out of control, and so much more.
I announced in the reshuffle of a couple of days ago, you would have seen that Jacinta Price will take on an additional shadow ministry and a government ministerial portfolio responsibility.
This Government has spent an extra $347 billion.
When you look at the words of the independent Reserve Bank Governor, she’s very clear and determined, and she too, is an individual who will not take a backward step.
She has advised the Government repeatedly that if the reckless spending continues, interest rates are going to stay higher for longer.
Inflation is fuelled by government waste and spending.
This Prime Minister and Jim Chalmers have completely ignored that advice.
So, we’ve had 12 interest rate rises and it’s fuelled inflation elsewhere in the economy.
The Government’s reckless energy policy of renewables only has driven up the cost of electricity to one of the highest costs in the world, and that has put pressure on not just families, but farmers and those who are involved in industry where there is a heavy use of energy.
That is all flowing on to families when they turn up to the checkout to try and pay for their grocery bill and realise that don’t get as much as you did two and a half years ago for every dollar you spend at a supermarket, or in a pharmacy, or in a childcare centre, or wherever it might be.
Our plan is to make sure that we can remove that wasteful spending and that is exactly what Jacinta will do.
Jacinta demonstrated during the course of the Voice campaign that she has our country in her heart, that she stands up for what she believes in, as we all do.
When the Voice was first proposed by the Prime Minister, there were 70 per cent of Australians who were instinctively in support of it, but didn’t know anything about it, but instinctively wanted to do the right thing by Indigenous Australians.
We took a stance as a Party of which you should be, I think, incredibly proud.
And we turned that into a result of 60-40 against the Voice.
Could you imagine if Anthony Albanese had his way and there was a debate in the Parliament now about the Voice and how all of a sudden they realised that the Voice was going to be applicable to education policy, it was going to be applicable to local development applications and to health policy and to law and order, and so it goes on.
As Liberals, as a Coalition, we took a principled stance and we stood up for our country and we did the right thing.
We’ve taken principled stances every day since then.
The Government wasted $450 million out of that Voice, money that could have gone to help pensioners and self-funded retirees and small businesses.
The Government’s priorities are all wrong.
When you look at this Prime Minister, quite distinct from his predecessors, this Prime Minister has Whitlam qualities about him, there’s no doubt.
His instinct is to provide support and succour to those who are in inner city seats in Sydney and Melbourne.
The reason he’s abandoned the Jewish community, the reason that he’s abandoned the salmon industry in Tasmania, the reason that he’s abandoned the live sheep export industry here in WA is not through principle, it’s because he’s chasing Greens votes in Western Sydney and in inner city Sydney and Melbourne. Don’t make any mistake about it.
Our country is less safe, we’re less prosperous and we’re more uncertain as a result of that.
He’s not changing course, and in that circumstance we have to change it for him.
Now, fortunately for the Prime Minister, his retirement plans are well known and our job is to help him enjoy that retirement plan sooner than later.
Now, my friends, if we are to do well at the election, if we are to win the election and get our country back on track, we can only do that if we win the seat of Curtin.
Sometimes, as you know, on election night, the results are obvious by the time the booths close here in the West.
That won’t be the case this time around.
We will all be waiting on the results that come in from Curtin and Bullwinkel and Pearce and Tangney and other seats here in WA – of that much I’m certain.
What you have done in selecting Tom White as our candidate for Curtin is you’ve given us the best chance of success.
You’ve given us the best chance of restoring integrity and of restoring honesty into the office of the Member for Curtin.
Tom has an incredible business career.
He was very, very understated, as he always is, when he gave a little reference to his business career before – he has been successful.
As liberals we really proclaim that.
But he’s much more than just his business career.
He has empathy and a sympathetic ear and obviously a very sharp mind and a capacity to help people who are in need.
They are the qualities, I think, which will be respected, along with many others, when people make a decision about who it is they’re going to vote for in the upcoming election.
The Teal’s game is almost up, but not yet.
Australians realise that the Teal brand is really a green brand.
There are – I could point perhaps to one, but likely even in that circumstance, not. I can’t point really to any of the Teals who would support the Liberal Party in a Coalition minority government if that is to be formed after the election.
Every one of the Teals has a green leaning, has voted with the Greens 70 per cent of the time – and that’s certainly the case for Kate Chaney.
They will support Anthony Albanese.
Now there’s no political expert in the country at the moment who sees that Anthony Albanese could form a majority government after the election.
So the proposition for Australians, when they’re voting for their candidates at the next election, is do they want a minority Albanese-Bandt Labor-Greens Government? That’s the option.
That’s the option if you vote Labor.
On the other hand, we could have a majority Liberal government, which I believe that we can achieve, or if we’re in a minority government position, even if we have more seats than the Labor Party, the Teals will line up to support Anthony Albanese.
Make no mistake about it.
So, I say to the people of Curtin and right across the country, if you’re thinking about voting for a Teal, please know that you are voting for Anthony Albanese and a continuation of a bad Government.
Two and a half years has been bad for our country.
Three more years will be catastrophic.
The bad decisions will be imbedded.
It won’t be 27,000 small businesses that have closed, it won’t be 54,000 – it’ll be many more.
Petrol prices will continue to go up, inflation will stay higher for longer because of Labor’s spending problem, and as we’ve seen with their attack on superannuation, which is just the start, and look at what they’re doing in Victoria with the Labor Government there, where in the superannuation policy of the Albanese Government, they’re taxing unrealised capital gain which is an attack on aspiration and hard work and savings.
In Victoria, they’re taxing everything that moves because they’ve run out of money.
That’s exactly what Anthony Albanese will do if he’s re-elected after the next election.
So my friends, I want to say thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you for your tenacity, for your loyalty to our Party.
Menzies would be so proud if he were to look out here today and see the men and women who make up and constitute the modern Liberal Party.
Our role, our obligation to our forebears is to make sure that we live up to the great ideals of this Party.
Home ownership is one such ideal, and we will restore the idea, the principle, the dream of home ownership again for young Australians.
It’s been lost under this Government because they know if people rent for longer, they’re more likely to vote for Labor for longer.
So they’ve abandoned people who are desperate to get into housing and it means their parents and grandparents are staying in the workplace for longer to try and save for them.
So I do believe there is a better way.
I believe we have the experience, we have the principles, we have the policies, and we can win.
With your support, we will win Curtin and we will win the next election.
With that, we will get our country back on track.
Thank you so much.
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