19 March 2022, Adelaide, South Australia
To our friends men and women of Labor, to the people of South Australia.
I stand here with my feet firmly on the lands of the Kaurna people. I pay my respects to their elders past present and emerging, but the way we pay our respects first and foremost, is not with our words, but with our deeds. And I affirm to each and every one of you here tonight, and the people across our state, that I very much look forward to, for the first time in the history of our Federation, having an initiated Aboriginal man leading our state's Aboriginal affairs movement, but also actively delivering on a state based voice treaty and truth for the Aboriginal people of our state.
Only only a few short moments ago. I received a telephone call from Steven Marshall. Stephen Marshall's call was utterly generous. It was gracious. And it was done with the class that we have become incredibly familiar with. Stephen Marshall has been the leader of the Liberal party in South Australia for nine years including four years as premier. And that is a very significant contribution to his party, and to our state. And we very much thank him for it
I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Liberal Party of Australia. The Liberal Party of Australia is an essential component of our Federation. It's essential component of our democratic process. And I take this opportunity, this is important, I take this opportunity to acknowledge that the Liberal Party are not our enemies. They may be our adversary. They may be our adversary, but they are not our enemies. And we thank them, on what is a significant tonight for them too. There are a lot of there are a lot of MPs and candidates tonight who have not been successful at this election, and in our democracy, that is a particularly difficult price to pay. And I want to acknowledge all of the families of those MPs who have lost their positions tonight. Politics is a tough business. And while we are right to be proud of our efforts tonight, we should acknowledge the hard work of others.
But first and foremost I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of South Australia. It is not lost on me, the significance of the privilege and the size of the responsibility that you invested in me in my team. Which means for my all of my MPs tonight, particularly the newly minted ones, and I'm incredibly proud of each and every one of them, it means that we've got a big job to do.
I think sometimes on election nights, when governments change hands, that the successful party can confuse the elation of electoral success with an inflated sense of achievement. Naturally people of South Australian Labor are right to feel satisfied tonight, but true satisfaction for us comes in realising our ambition, our ideal of delivering a fairer, better society and more opportunity for those who need it most.
To that end, I do believe that we have the policy and the plan to realise that ambition, but more than that, I know that I lead the team to deliver it. I want to thank one of the most intelligent, compassionate, hardworking, and reliable people I've ever met in my entire life, our great deputy leader, and future deputy premier, Susan Close.
[ 'Susan, Susan']
If we were cheeky, we'd be cheering out 'Dr. Susan', but that's another thing. People may not know, but Susan has been working so diligently behind the scenes compiling our policy effort, which is substantial. And I simply would not have been able to be here tonight without her. So thank you very much, Susan.
In the next parliament of South Australia, there will be a, a new longest serving MP. It's characterised as 'the father of the house'. And I do want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the longer serving MP in our parliament now. An individual that has been in serving in the parliament, have I get this maths right, for over 25 years. Every team needs a lion, and in Labor we have a loyal Labor lion in the honourable Tom Kousantonis. I've known Tom for a while, but, and we don't always agree, and when we when we disagree, it can get interesting. But the thing about about Tom is that he and I, like every other South Australian are utterly committed to our families and the long term future of our state. And I thank him for his service.
To the whole of my parliamentary team though. the confidence that you've invested in me from the moment I became leader has provided me with the greatest privilege of my life — up until a couple of hours ago— and I thank you for the confidence that you invested in me too.
To the most successful campaign director in Australia, Mr. Reggie, Martin,
Reggie Reggie, Reggie
Reggie,and I met in an old beat up Hyundai Excel, driving around visiting night workers many, many years ago. And it's hard to believe we're here today. But Reggie has been a, a loyal servant of the party for a long time. He is been campaign director for three separate elections. He's won two out of three of them, and I say two outta three ain't bad, Reggie. So well done.
The leader of the opposition, isn't blessed with the an abundant array of resources, so you rely on the few staff that you, that you have. And each, every one of my staff have been truly exceptional over the last four years and I thank them all. But they've been, ablely led by the hardest worker I know anywhere in the Labor movement, my good mate John Bistrovic. So thank you very much John.
To to all the volunteers that dedicate themselves to a night like tonight, but also doing some good in the Labor Party, we can't do it without you. I thank each and every one of you.
To Every every single Labor leader in the history of our great party, always stands on the shoulders of giants. And in the case of the Australian Labor party, those giants are millions of hardworking men and women across this country, ably represented by the Australian trade union movement. It takes a lot of courage to represent your fellow worker and sometimes put yourself in harm's way. And tonight I do want to particularly acknowledge all those hardworking people within our health system. Every doctor, every nurse, every hospital orderly, they've all served us so incredibly well during the pandemic, but a particular shout-out tonight to our ambos.
But Labor at its best, always, always embraces the notion that to achieve the right balance between the interests of capital and Labor, then hardworking individual contractors, sole traders, small and medium business owners, then they are equally as important to our ambitions for a fair society as any other of Labor's traditional constituencies. So I acknowledge them as well.
To my mother, Kate, who's here somewhere. To my mother, Kate and her late parents Bob and Ursula, to my father, Peter and his late parents, Peter and Etta.They've taught me everything I know and taught me the value of hard work, and I can't thank you enough. I'd also like to acknowledge my parents in law, Robin and Vicki and collectively that unit represents the most professional babysitters you've ever met in your entire life. And I thank them for all their hard work
Friends, there's a there's a quote that I think in Australian democracy, in western liberal democracy around the world, we should reflect on a little bit more often. It comes from a retired Supreme Court justice by the name of Felix Frankfurter. He famously said that 'the highest office in any democracy is the office of citizen'. When it comes to our democracy, there's never a truer word spoken. I think sometimes we are vulnerable to taking that for granted. This morning, I experienced the most humbling moment of the campaign. This morning, I was at Woodville Gardens polling booth, and I arrived there with Retab and Michelis Atahali, Syrian refugees who only six months ago became citizens of Australia. They were voting for the first time today.
They came, they came from a town just outside of Aleppo where their home was bombed only a years ago. Everything they had was lost. They had a young son, and they had nowhere to live. They fled to Lebanon where they waited for four or five years trying to find a permanent place they could call home. And it was Australia that opened our heart to this beautiful Syrian family, who by then had grown to having three children. And they came to this nation seeking one thing above all else, the opportunity to have a say on their destiny and their future. And today, as Annabel and I lined up at the polling booth next to them, it struck me —here I was, as the leader of their Labor party, the alternate premier of the state, standing next to this beautiful couple who were voting for the very first time, who came here with nothing to their name. And at that very moment, as we were standing next to each other, our votes were worth exactly the same. One could sense the hope, the desire, the aspiration that their votes, their votes had the power to deliver a better society, a fairer future, not just for themselves, but for their children and their children. The democratic ritual is one that we should never take for granted, particularly now, more than ever, at this special moment in time, we get one shot to recover from a global pandemic as a state and as a nation.
And when we look back on this moment in 20 years time, let them say that this generation was the new reconstruction generation. Let them say that we took this opportunity to deliver an economy that left noone behind. Let them say that we took this opportunity to invest in education, training, and skills so that every young person could fulfil their potential. Let them say, Let them say that this generation realised the opportunity of a clean energy future and all the jobs it can provide. Let them say, that we had a generational investment in health and mental health to ensure that people call Triple Zero, the ambulance rolls up on time.
Let them say, let them say that in this moment, this most unique occasion, that this generation decided not just to think about the next four years, but for the next generation to live out on that truly egalitarian, Australian ideal that we care for others more than we care for ourselves. Thank you very much.