Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I think the Minister for Agriculture might recognise this quote:

Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.

It is a quote that comes from Jesuit scholar and philosopher Baltasar Gracian. I think it is a time of year when self-reflection comes naturally to all of us. We look back on the year and our achievements and what we could have done better and what we still have to achieve for the year to come.

This year in particular for the opposition has been a year of some self-reflection because we saw the passing of three Labor giants this year—Gough Whitlam, Neville Wran and Wayne Goss. Amongst all of the sadness that we experienced at the loss of these three great men, we also had the opportunity to think about what Labor at its best can deliver for the Australian community and what, at our most optimistic, we can deliver for the people who we represent. So, amongst all of the sadness that we faced this year, we also faced this opportunity of reaching into our history and into our character and pulling out the threads of strength that have guided us in the past.

We also fought several state elections. We saw, for us, the sad loss of government in Tasmania. In South Australia we retained government despite all expectations. We won Victoria after just one term in opposition—a magnificent victory by Daniel Andrews. We saw the first ever Senate by-election in Western Australia. We also fought a by-election in the seat of Brisbane, and are now joined by the magnificent Terri Butler.

This is a time of reflection not just on the year's events. We also think about why it is that we are here. I believe that all of us here in this place are motivated by the sincerest desire to do good for the Australian community. I have very seldom felt any doubt about the motivation of the people who serve. I do not always agree with the way that they think the Australian community should progress or the way they think we should change our nation, but I do respect the fact that we have in this chamber and in the other place, too, members of parliament and senators who are motivated by sincere goodwill, who have a vision for our nation, who work very hard and who spend a lot of time away from their families and their communities, seeking to serve the people who they represent.

I also think about the people who serve our community not in the House of Representatives and the Senate but in many, many ways we see throughout our community. We see teachers, nurses, doctors, health professionals, emergency services workers, members of our defence forces, research scientists and medical research specialists—people who choose their line of work and their life's work not on the basis of the dollar that it will earn them or the public acclamation that they will receive but in the sincerest possible way to do good for their communities and to do good for people who, in many cases, they will never meet or see. They dedicate their lives to their community, to this Australian community. In considering our work here this year, I want to think also of those people, who most often go unremarked, who very seldom attract the notice of the Australian community, but without whom we could not function as a society.

While we are relaxing on Christmas Day, we will see many of those people continue about their work—staff in our hospitals, police on the beat, our defence forces overseas and emergency services workers available to be called out. I want to think about and give credit today to the work they will be doing on Christmas Day and during this holiday season, particularly, as summer comes, our bushfire firefighters, who are often called out in dangerous circumstances at this time of year.

I also want to mention not just the people who are in the course of their daily work called on to contribute even more at Christmas time but also those many, many thousands of volunteers who on Christmas Day will be seeking to make Christmas a gentler day, a day of companionship and a day of joy instead of a day of loneliness for the many Australians who do not have a family, who do not have the financial means to celebrate in the way that they would wish to, who do not have the ability to give Christmas presents to their children or who do not have the finances to join their families on the other side of the country or the other side of the world.

I hope that on Christmas Day, if we are not volunteering ourselves in this way, we are able to think about those many, many thousands of Australians who are doing so—people who will serve lunch at the Wayside Chapel, people who will serve lunch with Bill Crews at the Exodus Foundation or, in the community I grew up in, for the many hundreds of people now who go to St Patrick's at Sutherland for Christmas lunch to spend it together, the people who will serve lunch to make sure that people have a decent meal but, more importantly, some company on that very special day.

At these times of reflection, we consider our responsibility to the Australian community and we ask ourselves: what have we achieved? One of the things that comes most strongly to mind for me and tinges this reflection with sadness is the idea that all civilised communities are judged not by what we do for our strongest, by giving more to those who already have much, but by what we do for our poorest, our weakest and our most needy members of the community. I noted that the previous government speakers were reflecting on their year of achievement, and I just add a few things that I have been reflecting on in this year: the $400 million cut from public dental services; the $44 million cut from the new build in homelessness services, so no new homelessness services built; increasing costs of medicines; decreasing pensions; and cuts to family payments. In the year of reflection, perhaps we need to reflect also on what we have done for Australia's neediest people.

It is also a reflection that strikes me when I think of my own shadow portfolio of foreign affairs and international development. We have seen in this portfolio this year some real difficulties. I hear the Leader of the House saying that this is not the purpose of this discussion, and I would remind him that the Prime Minister covered all of these issues in his valedictory speech.

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