E&OE
Thank you so much for being here today.
I’m just going to ask our team, please – Lia and her team to come up and join me on stage, and Jacinta as well. So if I know that I’m making everyone stand up here, that’ll mean that I won’t talk for too long, which is a relief to them and to you as well. I’m so proud of our team here today.
Lia, I wanted to say thank you very much to you for your leadership and for the tenacity and the drive that you have to bring together an amazing team as you see here. To my wonderful friend, Jacinta, as well. I’ll touch on Jacinta a moment or two.
But I’m a very strong believer in you can’t be what you can’t see. And if you look here at these amazing women, accomplished in different ways, in their own rights, in different communities, from different walks of life, who have so much to give to the Territory.
It’s a celebration today for International Women’s Day, but for us as a Party as well. I want to say thank you very much to all who are involved in the process. Those of you who support any cause, any political party, those who are community leaders.
To Kym and Jacqui and to Bec – an amazing story, and I really want to pay tribute to you today. I know that we sort of went through the acknowledgements, but to be nominated and to be held up by your peers and by your community for somebody who is worthy of being the most recognised person in the Territory is an incredible achievement just to be nominated. So maybe we should give a big round of applause.
As Jacinta wisely pointed out before, it is a celebration of what we’ve been able to achieve.
We need to make sure, though, that we recognise that much more needs to be done and pay tribute to those who have gone through the steps in life, in previous generations, where they have made a huge sacrifice and haven’t been recognised in a way that people should have, or that women should have.
So, there are many trailblazers in many industries, and there are many sectors and walks of life and society represented here today. For you there will be individual role models or people who were the pioneers and people who provided mentorship or an opportunity, and you saw in them attributes and tenacity that perhaps you see reflected in your own selves today, or in your own children, in your own workplace, in your own community.
I am incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to achieve at a federal level, particularly in the business space, trying to support women into small businesses, into micro businesses – and sometimes that is the most valuable way for people to contribute in their own holistic way. Whether it’s a priority for their business or their relationship, for their important role as a mother or as a role model in community.
Many of our policies have been around giving people choice, which is a central element to our belief as a Party and as a movement and as leaders of this country. We want people to be able to have choice, not to have doors closed in people’s faces, but to make sure that the opportunity is there and the financial reward is there.
We came from a small business this morning – a young Polish lady who came to our country via Greece, but has an incredible story, but working seven days a week and in her business at the moment, not getting ahead because of the costs involved, because of labour laws, because of the electricity bill, insurance. There are many stories of success and failure and achievement and we should recognise all of those on an important day like today. We’re all shaped by our own upbringings, and Jacinta touched on just part of hers.
I have a very close relationship with my mum, but my grandmother was a dairy farmer and she would tell us stories as young kids about going to milk at 11:00 at night, of army soldiers camped out down the road as they would go to the dairy shed to milk. She was an inspiration to me, and I was the oldest grandchild. So, my sisters like to point out that I was the favoured and most spoilt of them, which I contest, but that’s their version! I have a very close relationship with my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, and, I had a wonderful paternal grandmother as well.
But, my mum picked up many of those attributes. And I have three sisters, who I’m very proud of, a gorgeous daughter, and wife. I’ve seen their different pathways. My sisters, through success, through knockback, through marriage, separations, some difficult times and difficult situations – dear friends have been through as well.
It says to me, as the Leader of our Party, that we need to make sure that we listen to all of those stories, so that we can learn and we can provide for a better future for the next generation coming through.
When you look at Jacinta – an inspirational person to millions of Australians. I don’t think we should underestimate how much influence she’s had, particularly over the course of the last 18 months or so. There was a lot of scepticism when Jacinta was on the backbench, and I appointed her into the Shadow Cabinet. The backbench is very important place, but to go from there, not to Parliamentary Secretary, not to junior Minister, but all the way to Shadow Cabinet Minister. Her attributes were obvious and her contribution, her confidence, but, to me, it was to her tenacity.
When I listened to her maiden speech, I heard a story of a young Indigenous woman and her family story over a long period of time. And it wasn’t just her indigeneity, but it was her ability to communicate and to speak and to offer hope and aspiration and to influence and to have a person, as I’m joined here today by these other powerful women as well, that young people, young women can see and can aspire to that likely wasn’t the case even five or ten or 25 years ago, let alone five generations ago. I want to celebrate all that we have collectively here on display today.
I want to say thank you very much for your support of these women, for what it is you’ve achieved in your own lives, the voice that you are for women in your community, but generally for society here in the Northern Territory. It’s a wonderful part of Australia, and it has so much upside and opportunity for more young Australians to come here and live, to experience a pioneering life in many cases, and I hope that we can do justice to that by the time of the next election with some of our policies, to see the economy grow here, to see jobs grow, to see the opportunity there for all Territorians to achieve their absolute best, and with Lia as the Chief Minister I believe that we can achieve that. When you look at the future Shadow Cabinet and Cabinet Ministers standing by my side here today, you know that the future for the CLP, but most importantly for the Northern Territory is very bright.
So, thank you all for being here today. Thank you for supporting my colleagues, and in particular my federal colleague, Jacinta, who has been a trailblazer for us.
I don’t feel more vindicated by any decision I’ve taken as the Leader of our Party, than appointing Jacinta into the role and what she’s done to protect our institutions, to make sure that she stands up even when the social media spite and hate – something that people couldn’t contemplate, but is a reality, of course, of all of our lives – I’m sure, as a human being it impacts, and I know from personal experience, of course it does. But – not that it’s water off a duck’s back, either. Maybe somewhere in between, but ultimately, it’s made her a stronger person, and you’ve supported her through that journey, but she’s prepared to stand up for what she believes in, fight for what she knows is right, even when the power of the voice of what’s wrong might be dominating the media presence, Jacinta Price is there, standing up as an inspiration to millions of Australians.
I’m incredibly proud of her and our friendship, and I’m very proud to be here with you today to support and to celebrate International Women’s Day, to celebrate what we can work on together into the future, to make sure that we continue to be the best country in the world.
Thank you very much.
[ends]