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 Home News General
Campaign targets poverty, health and education06 December 2003Opposition Leader Mark Latham yesterday pledged to launch a national campaign to eliminate poverty and restore the health system, using his first major speech to parliament to map out a vision of the role of government in helping Australians realise their aspirations for social and economic advancement. Watched by his political mentor, Gough Whitlam, Mr Latham portrayed Labor under his leadership as the party of the future and depicted the coalition as a negative, backward-looking government that had run out of ideas. And he nominated a national programme for early childhood development, boosting funding for schools and universities, restoring Medicare as a universal public health system, and solving the aged care crisis as key measures under a Labor government. But his speech became embroiled in controversy when the government's leader in the House of Representatives, Tony Abbott, responded with an intense personal attack, claiming Mr Latham had left "a trail of human wreckage" behind him, including an "abandoned first wife". Mr Abbott said this "brutal steak" suggested Mr Latham was not a credible alternative prime minister. The attack came despite questions in the past over Mr Abbott's own personal life, including the fact that a child he fathered outside marriage was given up for adoption. But Mr Latham said the government's attacks on him showed it was a negative and divisive administration with old and tired ideas. "It seems to be much more interested in my past that the country's future," he said. "I am not worried about how old the Prime Minister is; I am worried about how old his ideas are for the Australian people". "My plan is simple enough: I want Australians climbing the ladder of opportunity." Mr Latham said one of his first actions if elected would be to call on all levels of government in Australia to join in a "concerted national effort to eradicate poverty from our society." Stamping out poverty was essential to allow many Australians to climb the "ladder of opportunity" where they could use hard work, education and effort to improve their own lives and those of their children. "We will have a concerted intergovernmental effort to solve poverty in this country high on the agenda. It is our number one priority as a Labor Party and I want to work with my state and local government colleagues to achieve it for the nation." Earlier yesterday Labor's federal parliamentary party endorsed Mr Latham's move to put his predecessor, Simon Crean, and backbencher Stephen Smith back on Labor's frontbench. |
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© 2003 Health Services Union (HSU) |
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