PRIME MINISTER

2023 - 2 - 6

Doorstop - St Paul's Anglican Church, Canberra | Prime Minister of ... (Prime Minister of Australia)

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well Reverend Bachelard has given us a very powerful sermon this morning, speaking about the importance of the Statement ...

And I can just assure Australians that I have only been sworn into the position of Prime Minister, none others, and I have no intention of doing so. It won't have a right of veto, it won't be a funding body, it’s very clear with the principles that have been put out. We'll be talking about closing the gap, and the targets, and the fact that so many of them have not been met, when that is debated in Parliament over this sitting. We know that there have been consequences of the decision of Scott Morrison to inexplicably take over so many different portfolios. But I ask people to think about the generosity of spirit, and in the spirit of the service that we've just been to, the call for Indigenous recognition in our Constitution, and consultation on matters that affect them, will not have an impact on most people's lives. To cast a vote to walk upon the path of reconciliation in the spirit of generosity in which the Uluru Statement from the Heart calls us.

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Image courtesy of "BBC News"

Chris Mason: Sunak's backseat-driving former prime ministers (BBC News)

Rishi Sunak has a minibus full of predecessors who could end up as backseat drivers - with Liz Truss the latest to lurch towards the wheel.

There's no doubt that those of us on the side of politics who believe in smaller government and free markets have not been winning the argument." The state of public services? The massive government interventions during the pandemic? The cuts since 2010? There is at least some candour, too, about what she sees as her failings - "the communication wasn't good enough", and "I didn't have good enough infrastructure", a reference to the team assembled around her. The key thing is she holds to the view that her diagnosis of the UK's problems, as she sees them, is a lack of growth, and the underlying reason for this is an insufficiently Conservative approach to managing the economy - not least cutting tax.

Address to Caucus | Prime Minister of Australia (Prime Minister of Australia)

In 2022, since May, we've certainly hit the ground running. But 2023 will be the year of further delivery on our commitments for a better future. If you look at ...

We have a big agenda, but I'm very confident that the Ministry as well as the entire Caucus, the people in this room, will be able to deliver that better future that we committed to last May. Or jobs well done, indeed. But we continued to work to create the better future that we promised. Last week I met for the third time with the Referendum Working Group on the constitutional change that we will put to the Australian people in the second half of this year. So we will continue to engage in a respectful way and encourage people to come on board with this journey to reconciliation that is so critical going forward. Yesterday morning, at the ecumenical service, we received a reminder with a magnificent sermon of why this was something that was so important for Australia as well as being important for showing respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And that is why the legislation will be debated in the Parliament. That legislation will be before the House and the Senate during this fortnight, as well as the legislation arising from the Bell Inquiry. But we need to make sure that no-one else can do that in the future. It is good to be back here and it’s good to be back here on this side of the partyroom meetings. That we have the increase in social and community housing, and some of that quarantined specifically for those people who are escaping, women and children escaping family and domestic violence as well. That have taken the message of the 2022 election to be ‘we're not right-wing enough’, ‘we're not conservative enough’, ‘we're not divisive enough’.

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