abbotts budget reply , page-2

Great speech and generally very well received. Now compare that speech with Gillard's latest numpty thoughts at the closed invitation only vote for Gillard launch cos she is a woman...and abbott isnt...:

We’re here today because Australian women need a voice, an authentic voice, a voice that can be trusted, and friends, that voice is Labor…

Our party – the Labor Party – is the party of the many, not the few. That means we’re the party of women. Labor is the party of equal opportunity.

That means we are the party of women. Labor is the party that leaves no one behind. That means we are the party of women.

You know that and I know that, and we want to make sure that that is heard loud and clear. Look at our history. It was Labor that introduced maternity allowances, the first great wave of social reform after federation.

It was Labor that gave women the chance to serve and shine in the farms and factories of wartime in the 1940s.

It was Gough Whitlam’s Labor that delivered the first pay equality case and started federal funding for childcare.

And it was only ever Labor that was going to give this nation its first female prime minister.

It was only ever Labor that was going to put paid parental leave on the agenda and get it done
It was only ever Labor that was going to out a National Disability Insurance Scheme on the agenda, so women with disability and women who bear the burden of caring can get the supports that they need.

It was only ever Labor that was going to invest in the future by rolling out the National Broadband Network, and it’s only Labor that is going to invest in the education of every child in every school.

That’s Labor’s agenda, and it’s only Labor that would deliver an agenda like that for Australia’s women.

Ben Chifley famously spoke of the things worth fighting for. I’m here today to tell you about the women worth fighting for.

Australian women, who benefit from Labor’s purpose, from Labor’s passion; I’m here to tell you today, to urge you, to get out and fight. We’ve got a hard fight ahead but it’s a hard fight to wage and we must win on 14 September.

On that day, 14 September, we are going to make a big decision as a nation. It’s a decision about whether, once again, we will banish women’s voices from our political life.

I invite you to imagine it. A prime minister – a man in a blue tie – who goes on holidays to be replaced by a man in a blue tie.

A treasurer, who delivers a budget wearing a blue tie, to be supported by a finance minister – another man in a blue tie. Women once again banished from the centre of Australia’s political life.

We don’t want to see an Australia where a paid parental leave scheme divides women, that divides upper-income women from lower-income women; that divides upper-income women from their sisters who earn less but pay through potentially loss of jobs and certainly increased prices for a paid parental leave scheme that gives those that earn the most the most benefits.

We don’t want to see childcare slashed; we don’t want to see healthcare slashed; look at what has happened in Queensland: cuts to healthcare, cuts to Breast Screen. We don’t want that to be our future in Australia.

We don’t want to see superannuation slashed, particularly for working women. We don’t to see women lose rights at work, because when fairness and dignity at work goes it’s women who bear the brunt. We know that, we’ve seen it before.

We don’t want to see the National Disability Insurance Scheme put in the custody of a political party that didn’t create it, didn’t believe in it with the power that we did and simply said ‘me too’.

We don’t want to stand in front of school gates knowing that the children in that school, including the girls in that school, are getting less of an education than they should because our nation hasn’t seen fit to invest in their future.

Finally but very importantly, we don’t want to live in an Australia where abortion again becomes the political plaything of men who think they know better.

That’s not the future we should choose for our nation, it’s not the future that I want to see for Australian women, it’s not the future I want to see for Australia’s girls…

Women’s equality has always been hard-fought for, and we’re entering a hard fight again.