Australia's best days are ahead of us. Not just the better days that we’re all hoping for right now, but the best our nation has ever seen.

Together, we are ready for it. Australia Day is a good moment for us to reflect; to consider our blessings as a nation and to celebrate them. Perhaps that is more important now than it has been for decades.

We have been through a time so challenging none of us will ever forget it.

I know, as we enter the third year of the pandemic, a lot of Australians are

exhausted. Worn down by bad news, uncertainty, inconvenience, disruption and separation from loved ones.

And we look forward to the day when we can put all this behind us.

If we get this moment right, Australia can emerge from this once-in-a-century crisis better, stronger, more fair, and more prosperous.

My case for government is that we must learn the lessons of this pandemic in

order to build a more resilient Australia. What stands before us now is the opportunity to build on the best qualities that characterise Australians, and to realise our potential as a people and a nation more

fully than at any time in our history. The chance is ours to seize. But it requires courage.

It requires vision. It requires leadership that brings Australians together.

Just “pushing through” this pandemic is not enough. We need to learn from it, we need to use what the last two years have taught us to build a better future.

Paul Keating once said the lesson of World War I was about ordinary people - and the lesson was they were not ordinary.

We’ve had that same truth brought home to us these past two years.

I say it every chance I get -

the Australian people have been magnificent during this crisis. Calm in the midst of turmoil, looking out for each other in tough times.

Those values are worth reflecting upon on Australia Day.

I want a better future. An Australia with rising living standards, lifted by secure work, better wages, better conditions for small business, stronger Medicare and more affordable childcare.

An Australia with more secure jobs in existing and new industries - industries that will be reaping the benefits of cheap, renewable energy.

An Australia that is secure in our place in the world, standing up for Australian democratic values and for human rights on the global stage.

An Australia with robust funding for the Australian Defence Force, which rebuilds

our diplomatic service, revitalises our international aid program, and works closely with our American ally and regional partners in the challenges and uncertainties that lie ahead.

An inclusive society, where gender, race or religion are no indication of a person’s opportunities or possibilities.

An Australia reconciled with ourselves and with our history, and with a constitutionally recognised

First Nations voice to parliament. This crisis has shown us we are stronger together.

But that truth is older and runs deeper than this pandemic.

Tom Uren was the closest person in my life I had to a father figure.

He fought in World War II. He spent most of it as a prisoner of war.

And he always said his fellow Australian prisoners

survived because of a simple code: The healthy looked after the sick, the strong looked after the weak, the young looked after the old.

To me, that’s always been the best of Australia.

 

This opinion piece was first published in the Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, 26 January 2022.