Introduction of Tony Abbott at State Council on 28 May 2011
Thanks Tony and congratulations on becoming President of our great Party here in Victoria. I don’t think there is anyone in Victoria who has worked harder for the Liberal cause over the last few years.
It is interesting to note that while we are here today in vast numbers thanks to the Party Reforms you and David Kemp championed, at Trades Hall tomorrow John Faulkner will be convening a crisis meeting to address the reported 40% drop in ALP membership following the recent Federal and State elections.
Well done. The Party owes both a debt of gratitude.
Ladies and Gentlemen it is a great honour to be asked to introduce our party’s Federal parliamentary leader and it is fantastic to see such a great crowd.
I know there is a current Prime Minister who would die to see an audience like this in her home state.
Maybe she should realise if you: withhold $500m worth of flood money for four months, cut GST receipts by $2.5 billion, and deliver only a quarter of the funding that will go to NSW for road and rail funding - you are not going to get them filling the terraces in Victoria.
Then again perhaps she now considers South Australia home.
Contrast that record to that of our Parliamentary Leader.
Since winning last year’s election campaign, but missing out on Government due to the appalling judgement of the two country Independents, Tony Abbott has not stopped.
He has been to Victoria countless times demonstrating his remarkable appetite for hard work.
He’s been to Wannon and ridden shotgun in a surf boat, to La Trobe to race Puffing Billy, to Geelong to wow the auto workers and Corangamite to hold a community forum.
In fact as I was sitting home last Saturday night watching my beloved Richmond Tigers carve up Essendon at the “G” I had to do a double take as they flashed Tony sitting up in the stands wearing a
Tigers scarf.
What judgement.
But it is not only his appetite for hard work that has caught the Australian peoples imagination- it his character, his values and what he stands for.
At our State Council last year, three months before the last election, Tony Abbott stood before us and said the following:
“We will not saddle Australians with a great big new tax on everything in the name of misguided environmentalism. I am as ready as the next man to protect our environment because we only have one planet but, ladies and gentlemen, you do not protect the environment and you do not reduce emissions by putting a new tax on the necessities of daily life –that is no way to go and we won’t do it.”
And when he said it he meant it.
Just like he meant it when he has spelt out how we will get people off welfare and back into work, address mental health through a serious funding commitment, tackle the endemic issues facing indigenous Australians and act to protect manufacturing jobs in Australia.
In his superb budget reply Tony delivered what will be remembered as a speech that highlighted the tectonic shift taking place on Australia’s political landscape.
By highlighting what four years of hard Labor has done to the Australian people he made a direct appeal to the “forgotten families”.
He spelt out how a Colation Government would reward hard work and effort, value the taxes we pay and put integrity back in Government.
And it is a message that is still resonating across the country.
There is no doubt, Howard’s battlers are returning to the fold to form Abbott’s army.
Ladies and gentlemen, would you join me in welcoming Australia’s alternative Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott.
