It is great to be here with Labor delegates from all over the state of Queensland and the great Queensland trade union movement.
 
It is such an honour to be introduced by my friend, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. As the last state election confirmed, you are a Labor legend.
 
And as the record books now show, you are Australia’s longest-serving female head of government.
 
With you and your team in charge, Queensland has been in good hands during some very trying times.
 
And Queenslanders recognised this when they went to the ballot box.
 
What an emphatic result.
 
I was heartened because I want Queensland to keep going from strength to strength – and the best way for that to happen is with a Labor government.
 
You all know my equation by now. I love Queensland 365 days a year, and 362 nights.
 
I don’t waver on State of Origin.
 
I’ve always been firm about the footy – I don’t change codes, and I don’t change teams.
 
By way of contrast, I give you Scott Morrison.
 
There’s something about Queensland that really seems to set him off.
 
He bags you while he talks up his home state of NSW.
 
Even when he crosses the Tweed, he bags you.
 
Maybe he can’t stand being reminded that it was a Federal Labor Government with a Queensland Prime Minister and a Queensland Treasurer that protected Australia from the Global Financial Crisis.
 
Maybe it’s even more fundamental than that and he hasn’t forgiven Queensland for giving Australia the Labor Party.
 
Or maybe Queensland is just so far outside his narrow vision that it confuses him.
 
It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise during the recent quarantine kerfuffle that he couldn’t tell the difference between Toowoomba and Betoota.
 
And he thinks the planes have to go to Brisbane – even though the Wellcamp Airport at Toowoomba is famously able to take large planes, including his own.
 
It seems he’s forgotten about Toowoomba Hospital, too.
 
Premier Palaszczuk has stepped up time and time again to fill the void left by Scott Morrison.
 
In the face of a Prime Minister who doesn’t hold a hose and doesn’t think this is a race, you have taken the tough decisions on borders and on vaccinating aged care workers.
 
Now we see a real plan for quarantine dismissed without examination and a last minute rule change splashed across this morning’s papers – even though it would make perfect sense to build a dedicated quarantine facility in Queensland. Scott Morrison’s response to the proposal is to pick a fight.
 
Take a guess who I’ve got my money on.
 
Queenslanders have many qualities. One is an unparalleled talent for combining wisdom with brutal efficiency.
 
Exhibit A: the way you turfed out the Newman Government after just one term.
 
Since then, Queenslanders have voted for Labor in ever greater numbers.
 
Three terms in, Queenslanders are seeing their collective wisdom paying dividends.
 
I want to translate the support for Queensland Labor to the federal level.
 
I want it to be clear that the best choice for your great state is a Labor government in Canberra, working with Annastacia here in Queensland.
 
A federal government that ensures Queensland’s voice is prominent in the nation’s capital.
 
A federal government that looks to Queensland’s rich catalogue of achievements and is inspired by it.
 
A federal government that draws strength from the mighty union movement and understands, as your members do, that we will always be at our best when unions and business work together.
 
And the way to make that happen is with Labor.
 
At a federal level, the Liberal and National parties now have the unhappy distinction of standing for nothing.
 
Believing in nothing.
 
Delivering nothing.
 
A Government that had two jobs – quarantine and vaccination – and botched them both.
 
A Government that only responds once there is an absolute crisis but never, ever provides leadership.
 
Scott Morrison owes it to the Australian people to be an exemplar of openness and transparency.
 
Instead, it’s all smirk and mirrors.
 
And it is only when he is called out on it that we get a glimpse – a troubling glimpse – of the real Scott Morrison.
 
A man whose failures have caused real damage to the health of his fellow Australians, to businesses, and to the economy.
 
He’s counting on Australians to forget that his Government has been in power for eight long years.
 
Eight long years and no positive legacy.
 
Acting like an opposition in exile on the Government benches.
 
When I served as Deputy Prime Minister, I had the honour of being Acting PM on two occasions for a period of days. Scott Morrison has been Acting PM every day since 2018.
 
A Government without a sense of purpose other than occupying the space.
 
Even the budget they handed down last month had no plans for reform, no long-term vision, no legacy beyond a debt so huge that it will cast a shadow for generations to come.
 
And what commitment did Queenslanders get out of the budget? The lowest per-person-rate of infrastructure spending in the country.
 
Compare that with the last time I worked with Annastacia.  As our respective infrastructure ministers, we delivered. Every day.
 
From the Cape York roads package, the Townsville Ring Road, the Mackay Ring Road, Calliope Crossroads, Yeppen Flood Plain, Bruce Highway upgrades, Cooroy to Curra, Gold Coast light rail, Warrego Highway and of course Redcliffe Rail – first promised in 1895, delivered by the powerful combination of Federal and State Labor.
 
Then there’s Cross River Rail which would have been open now, if the LNP in Canberra and Campbell Newman hadn’t cancelled it.
 
This is a Federal Government that takes Queensland for granted.
 
And soon they’ll be asking the Australian people to give them another term.
 
The only thing that another term of this Government would guarantee is a lost decade for Australia.
 
It doesn’t have to be this way. As Queensland has consistently shown by example, Labor offers an alternative.
 
It is 130 years since the trade union movement took the struggles of working Australians from the shearing shed and the factory floor and on to the floor of Parliament.
 
Labor’s flame burns brightly, lighting the path ahead.

As the only party that understands and uses the power of government to change people’s lives for the better, Labor remains the most powerful vehicle for progress and reform in this country.
 
All of it powered by an ambition for our nation, and a deep, unwavering faith in our fellow Australians.
 
But Labor haven’t even waited to get back into government to make a difference.
 
What Labor has done during the pandemic is drag the LNP out of their slumber and towards action.
 
We offered constructive solutions such as wage subsidies, which Scott Morrison initially dismissed as “very dangerous”.
 
Just as Labor values have been the right ones for the crisis, they will be the right ones for the recovery.
 
It is something the Liberals and Nationals admitted in their actions, if not their words.
 
Look at the way they scrambled to come up with their own childcare policy after we announced ours in last year’s budget reply.
 
Labor knew it would be good for families, good for children, good for business, and good for the economy.
 
They dismissed it.
 
Then in their budget last month, they came up with a half-baked childcare policy that we know they’ll never deliver on.
 
What the Treasurer hasn’t worked out is that if you perform half a backflip, you fall flat on your face.
 
Labor is guided by three principles:

1. An economy that delivers for working families;
2. Investing in Australia’s future;
3. Making sure everyone can get ahead.

These three principles will drive our plans and policies to secure a better future, improve living standards and promote fairness.
 
Every policy and principle I have announced since becoming leader is a way for Australia to build back stronger. To seize that once-in-a-century opportunity the pandemic has given us.
 
Part of that opportunity is to take advantage of the movement of Australians out of the capital cities and into regional communities.
 
It makes sense for governments to nurture regionalisation.
 
This Government has killed off public service jobs in the regions – jobs that represent vital services for residents, not least Medicare and Centrelink.
 
Federal public sector jobs in regional Queensland have been cut by 10 per cent. In Townsville, that figure is almost 15 per cent.
 
The Federal Government’s approach is the opposite of smart regionalisation, which calls for genuine investment, serious policy making, proper consultation and determined implementation.
 
It calls for education and health services being up to scratch and able to cope with the growing population, which is especially significant in Queensland as a destination for so many interstate migrants.
 
And it calls for the urgent tackling of the housing affordability problem that is growing in many parts of this state and pricing people out of their own towns.
 
Consider the alternative:
 
Ninety thousand manufacturing jobs have been lost since the LNP came to power in Canberra.
 
They drove car manufacturing offshore.
 
And in Queensland the Newman Government bought trains from overseas rather than building them here.
 
And then those trains had to be made fit for purpose by, you guessed it, Australian workers.
 
They’re doing it right now in Maryborough.
 
I’m no stranger to Downer EDI up there, where the New Generation Rolling Stock trains imported by the Newman Government are being repaired by skilled Queenslanders.
 
A federal Labor government would back the skills of those workers and the vision of Queensland Labor with a National Rail Manufacturing Plan.
 
Meanwhile, a great Queensland success story is getting on with the job of creating the future.
 
Brisbane-based Tritium developed and is exporting the technology to recharge electric vehicles. Their charging stations are the fastest in the world and are fuelling the shift to EVs in Europe.
 
Their chargers are used by companies such as Ford, Volkswagen, Harley Davidson and Daimler.
 
The problem isn’t that the conservatives are stuck in the past, the problem is that they want Australians to go back there and keep them company.
 
We believe in ensuring Queensland’s traditional industries have a future.
 
Mining, for example, makes up almost 12 per cent of Queensland’s economy. Queensland’s huge coal and bauxite reserves are of such high quality, they are – and will remain – highly sought overseas.
 
But we also know it’s crucial to back emerging industries. And in many cases, the new industries are being supported by our traditional ones.
 
For example, it takes more than 200 tonnes of metallurgical coal to produce one wind turbine.
 
According to forecasts of global growth in wind power capacity to 2030, Australia could be exporting 15.5 million tonnes of coking coal to build these turbines.
 
This is the equivalent of three years output from the Moranbah North coking coal mine in Queensland.
 
Meanwhile, Queensland’s abundance of sunshine and wind resources and your massive opportunities in hydrogen will be key to Australia realising its potential as a renewable energy superpower.
 
It is a reality recognised by industry. Sun Metals zinc refinery in Townsville, as just one example. They’re the second biggest energy user in Queensland. Backed by solar and hydrogen, they plan to convert to 100 per cent renewables by 2040.
 
Labor wants to be at the forefront of that clean energy revolution.
 
A government I lead will establish the Rewiring the Nation project to give Australia the power grid the 21st century demands.
 
We will establish a National Reconstruction Fund to diversify our industrial base, drive regional economic development, create secure jobs and develop our sovereign capability.
 
We will establish Jobs and Skills Australia to fill the gaps that are holding us back – the gaps that have grown under this Government. Since they were elected, the number of traineeships and apprenticeships in North Queensland alone have been cut by more than 30 per cent.
 
There is so much more that can be done.
 
You wouldn’t pick it from Scott Morrison’s photo ops, but the largest contribution to the Queensland economy has been from health care and the services sector.
 
It has grown by 66 per cent over the past decade.
 
An ageing population means it will keep growing.
 
If we invest in our care workforce in training, in research, in giving our workers the best tools and equipment – we can end up exporting the knowledge and expertise the world is crying out for.
 
Then there’s tourism.
 
Queensland spoils you for choice when it comes to reasons to visit.
 
It’s no surprise the sector employed more than 145,000 people in the last full financial year before the pandemic.
 
And yet it’s been left without help and without certainty, left in the lurch by a man determined to be the Prime Minister for NSW.
 
The LNP has no future vision for our nation. No ambition. Just a plan to get through the next election.
 
Their budget foreshadowed a reduction in wages, low growth, low productivity and lower workforce participation.
 
Having had no plan during their first three terms, it is unsurprising they don’t have one for their fourth.
 
Just continuing to manage political problems that they have created and treating taxpayers’ funds as though they are the LNP’s funds.
 
This is a government that is out of time, out of ideas – and at the next election, it should be out of office.
 
As we look to a future beyond the pandemic, we have a once in a century opportunity.
 
If you want to reinvent our economy as one that works for people, not the other way around, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want to lift wages and make sure they keep rising, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want secure work, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want people doing the same job to get the same pay, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want to build things in this country by reviving manufacturing, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want Australia to emerge as a renewable energy superpower, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want to turn the scientific breakthroughs of our brightest minds into the products and services that will generate economic and social benefits for decades to come, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want a national project to repair our VET system with public TAFE at its heart, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want affordable, quality childcare, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want to fix aged care, Labor is on your side.
 
If you want to address the housing crisis, Labor is on your side.
 
And if you want to champion equality for women, Labor is on your side.
 
I say to Australians: You deserve what Queenslanders already have – a Government that breaks records and shapes the future.
 
A Government that is on your side.
 
And you deserve a Federal Government that’s on Queensland’s side.