Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

The Prime Minister was interviewed recently and asked what his legacy will be. Naturally, when you haven't done anything it becomes a very tough question. His reply was 'I don't believe in legacies'. When I was a kid growing up, I saw what governments could do. They could house a new family like mine. They could provide public housing for a new migrant family like mine. They could provide universal health care. They could provide a HECS repayment system that allowed me to go through arts-law at university. They were governments that did things to make Australia better, to leave a legacy. As Prime Minister Keating said, when you change the government, you change the country. To me, it is actually despairing to hear the Prime Minister say that he doesn't even have a legacy. Well, what are we here to do if it's not to leave a legacy? This is a place of power—not power for its own sake or just to retain it but power to make a difference, to use that power.

I believe in a legacy and I believe in what is coming. I hope that, with the election that is coming, the Australian people will see that we believe in a legacy—that we will leave a legacy of a better life for them. Whether it is on climate change and renewable energy, whether it is on manufacturing in Australia, whether it is on affordable child care, whether it is on education or the management of the economy or housing affordability or our foreign affairs and our place in the world, Labor has always sought to leave a legacy when in government. That's what we'll do if we win the next election.

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