Isn t it great to lead a united political party with a deputy I can trust, a prede

cessor who s a friend and a former prime minister who s a hero!

My fellow Australians, this election is about you. It s about your future, your fa
mily s future and our nation's future. But not everyone thinks so. The Labor Part
y thinks that this election is all about them. They re worried about who gets the
top job while the Coalition wants to create more jobs.
They re worried about their own squabbles while we want to help you through your s
truggles. They react only to a bad poll while we respond to your concerns. They
will do anything to win while we know that we must do everything we can to secur
e your future. That s why men and women of Australia I m asking for your support to
end the waste, pay back the debt, stop the big new taxes, stop the boats and he
lp struggling families.
So today, my fellow Liberals and Nationals, we face a historic challenge. Not si
nce 1975 has there been such a time in Australian politics. Our task is nothing
less than to save Australia from the worst government in its history. Now I kno
w this is a big claim but consider the facts. This is a government that s broken p
romises, that s wasted money and tried to clobber the country s most successful indu
stry with a great big new tax.
Just six weeks ago, it politically executed its own leader, thereby effectively
admitting that it had failed. Never before in Australian history has an elected
prime minister been removed from office by his own party in a first term of that
government. Six weeks ago the government had lost its way, on its own admissio
n, and since then it s just got worse.
The secret deal to fix the mining tax has fallen apart and the anti-tax ads are
back on air. The deal that was supposed to stop the boats got lost somewhere in
the Timor Sea and the boats keep coming. And its policy to deal with climate cha
nge is one of the greatest failures of nerve ever seen from an Australian govern
ment: to select 150 people at random from the phone book and ask them to make th
e decision.
I say to the people of Australia, it s no way to run a government and it s no way to
treat a country. Six weeks ago, Kevin Rudd was apparently so toxic to the Labor
brand that he had to be politically assassinated. But since then Julia Gillard
has become so toxic to the Labor brand that she s had to be rescued by the man she
replaced.
I say, it s time to end this soap opera and to give Australia back a grown up gove
rnment. As things stand, it doesn t really matter which Labor leader fronts the ca
meras because the faceless men are always in charge. They can analyse a poll but
they can t read a balance sheet. They can execute a leader but they can t execute a
programme. They re good at politics but they re absolutely hopeless at running a go
vernment .
To all the decent Labor people embarrassed by the incompetent patronage machines
that the NSW and Queensland Labor governments are; to everyone anxious that the
NSW Labor mafia is now running the country, I say: let s bury this era of gutless
spin and give our country a fresh start where politicians say what they mean an
d do what they say.
But I say also to my fellow Liberals and Nationals I say: The public are asking
us to do more than just replace a bad government. They are asking us to restore
some sense of honour and integrity to Australia s public life.
We must offer the Australian people a better way. So I say again, if elected a C
oalition government will end the waste, pay back the debt, stop the big new taxe
s, stop the boats and help struggling families and we will do that from day one.

From day one under a Coalition government, the mining industry could do again wh
at it does best: creating wealth and employing hundreds of thousands of Australi
ans without the threat of an investment killing, jobs destroying great big new t
ax.
From day one under a Coalition government, everyone who uses energy - that s pensi
oners, retirees, farmers, families and young people - could live without the thr
eat of a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme that would raise prices, dama
ge industries and cost jobs.
In week one ladies and gentlemen, a Debt Reduction Taskforce will be established
, co-chaired by Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb, to get to the bottom of Labor s waste
and mismanagement, to see the real state of the government s books and to prepare
a comprehensive plan to start repaying Australia s $90 billion debt.
In month one, an economic statement will be issued outlining Australia s financial
risks and opportunities and the new government s response to them. The Murray Dar
ling Basin plan, buried by Labor, will be released for consultation. And Julie B
ishop and I will visit the countries of our neighbourhood to reestablish the bon
ds of trust broken by the Rudd Gillard government s preference for a headline over
a relationship.
In week one, the Cabinet and the National Security Committee will meet, I will c
hair it, ministers will attend - in person, not via their bodyguards - and we wi
ll take back control of Australia s borders. Within a month of taking office, the
Coalition will reassure people frightened that Labor s insulation batts might burn
down their homes. In addition to the existing inspection programme, we will rei
mburse householders who organize their own inspections by qualified tradesmen an
d further reimburse householders whose insulation has to be removed.
On day one of a Coalition government, I d pick up the phone to the President of Na
uru to reopen the Australian built and Australian funded offshore processing cen
tre - because ladies and gentlemen, the people smugglers need to know that their
game is up.
From day one, a Coalition government would stop the school hall rip offs by givi
ng money directly to school P&Cs that wouldn t waste it. And on day one ladies an
d gentlemen, we will safeguard the livelihoods of people who earn their living f
rom the sea. Under the next Coalition government, parliamentary questions will f
inally get real answers because I ll change the old rules that gave ministers endl
ess licence to attack the other side.
As soon as parliament can be recalled, the necessary measures will be taken to p
rovide much tougher penalties against people smuggling including mandatory priso
n sentences. We know that existing penalties are clearly not a sufficient deterr
ent because, under Labor, the boats just keep coming. Under the Coalition, every
convicted people smuggler will spend at least a year in prison and the worst of
fenders and repeat offenders will face a minimum of ten years behind bars.
Temporary Protection Visas will be reinstated and the message will be clear. Aus
tralia s borders are back under control and the people smugglers will once more be
out of business.
My friends, within three months, preparations for an emissions reduction fund wi
ll be under way and the first recruiting for the Green Army will be about to sta
rt. The implementation of our small business reforms will have commenced. A new
national violent gangs squad will have been established.
The private health insurance rebate will be safe. Our health reforms will be und
erway. The first COAG meeting will have been held and it would not have adjourne
d without agreement on boards and more beds for our public hospitals.
As well, within three months, in person and on the spot, I would have reassured
our soldiers in Afghanistan that Australians support their mission. Our most imp
ortant trading partners and our principal allies would know that they can count
on Australia. These are the vital tasks that the Australian people expect us to
perform and they will commence from day one of the life of an incoming Coalitio
n government.
A Coalition government, first and foremost, means prudent and responsible stewar
dship of the nation s finances. After all, it s the reforms of John Howard and Peter
Costello, not the Rudd-Gillard government s spending spree that have protected Au
stralia from the global financial crisis.
Australia s debt and deficit problem may not be quite as bad as some other countri
es but that s because we started from a much stronger position than almost anyone
else. Only a desperate, a truly desperate, Labor Party could seriously maintain
that putting insulation batts into roofs or building overpriced school halls kep
t Australia out of recession.
The Coalition understands that every dollar that government spends is held on tr
ust from the taxpayers. A Coalition government will never take your taxes for gr
anted because I know just how hard you work to pay for them. That s why the new sp
ending that the Coalition has announced in this campaign is fully costed and ful
ly funded mostly by reductions in other government spending.
Under the Coalition, spending will always be less and tax will always be lower t
han under Labor. We will take the high road to surplus of cutting spending, not
the low road of increasing taxes, so our surplus will be achieved with the gover
nment s share of the economy smaller than it would be under Labor.
So much of Labor s current spending is for new bureaucracies or involves giving ex
tra money to the Labor states to do the job they should be doing anyway such as
meeting recommended hospital waiting times.
This is the sort of spending that the Coalition will redirect to real benefits t
hat the Australian people might actually notice. Our spending proposals are targ
eted, responsible and affordable even in an era of fiscal restraint. They have t
hree over-riding objectives: to ease the cost of living pressures on families, t
o make our people and our society more productive and to keep our country strong
and secure.
Only the Coalition knows how to stop the boats. We ve had 150 boats carrying more
than 7000 illegal entrants since the Rudd-Gillard government weakened our border
protection. It s no coincidence that public support for the immigration program
increased after the former government largely stopped the boats. Australians jus
t won t support a large immigration programme until they re confident that the gover
nment can control our borders. Immigration has to be sustainable if public suppo
rt is to be maintained so the Coalition would cut more than 100,000 a year from
the 2009 immigration number.
Water is probably the most urgent environmental challenge facing our country. Th
e Coalition will end Labor s procrastination and fully and finally implement the H
oward/Turnbull/Anderson plan for the Murray Darling basin. Carefully targeted wa
ter buybacks plus much more efficient use of water has the potential to rejuvena
te the Murray mouth and to protect Adelaide s water supply.
As well, the Coalition will establish a standing Green Army, 15,000 strong, to c
omplement the landcare efforts of farmers, volunteers and national park rangers.
We ve long had state emergency services and rural fire services to cope with natu
ral disasters. So why not start something similar to deal with the ongoing envir
onmental emergency of land degradation?
I want to address a few words to people thinking of voting Green. I share your c
oncerns for the future of our country and fully accept that we have only one pla
net to live on. The Coalition will definitely meet our 2020 emission reduction
targets. But rather than taxing consumers, the Coalition will buy abatements, pa
rticularly through soil improvements and tree planting. That way, we ll improve ag
ricultural productivity as well as reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The Coalitio
n, in fact, is now the only major political party with an effective policy to re
duce emissions. What we will never do, though, is damage our economy with futile
gestures.
So ladies and gentlemen, it s more important than ever for government to be frugal
when Australian families have to be so careful with their own spending. My wife
Margie and I know what it s like to juggle a family budget and share people s anger
when government wastes billions on indulgent schemes designed to fix headlines
rather than to fix problems.
There s little point announcing new initiatives for families if the money to pay f
or them has to be borrowed or taken from the very families it s supposed to help.
That s why the Coalition s family initiatives in this election don t rely on extra bor
rowing or on new taxes on consumers.
We ll help with additional support for education expenses including school fees an
d child care costs. And also importantly for the education of people with disabi
lities. There ll be 3000 more high care nursing home beds and 2800 more public hos
pital beds including 800 for mental health. We ll have more after hours GP service
s and better care of chronic disease by increasing the Medicare rebates for thes
e services. More affordable medical services mean fewer people crowding into hos
pital emergency departments.
In the longer term, a Coalition government will reform health services not just
fund them. Public hospitals will be run by community boards not by unaccountable
bureaucrats. And by providing 100 per cent of public hospital funding, where th
e states agree, we might finally end the blame game that Kevin Rudd talked about
but did not fix.
Of course, making public hospitals and public schools more responsive to the com
munities they serve is an economic reform as well as a social one.
The introduction of a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme is the obligation t
hat a serious political party owes to modern society and that an aware political
parent owes to his three daughters. These days, most families need more than on
e income to survive and because 62 per cent of mothers are in the workforce just
prior to having a baby, paid parental leave reinforces the most conservative in
stinct of all: the instinct to have a family.
It s good for women because it gives them a real choice to combine paid work and f
amily. It s good for families because it gives them real help when they are most f
inancially vulnerable. Labor s scheme by contrast is just a re-badged Baby Bonus;
it s certainly not the real wage that families need to pay their bills and to make
ends meet. That s why we will pay replacement wages like the vast majority of sch
emes around the world.
Our paid parental leave scheme is good for business because government will mana
ge the paperwork and pay employees directly. Labor makes employers the paymaster
 and that s an extra burden that small business should not have to cop.
And finally, our paid parental leave scheme is good for the economy because it g
ives the population, participation and productivity boost that s necessary if Aust
ralia is to avoid the demographic issues associated with an ageing population.
Like paid parental leave, our seniors employment incentive payment is another im
portant participation reform.
And there is a third participation-boosting reform that the Coalition wants to
implement: breaking the cycle of welfare dependency for young indigenous people
and others trapped in intergenerational poverty; provided they are prepared to r
enounce their welfare entitlement in return for a guaranteed job. The Coalition
is determined to back this insight of Noel Pearson because real leadership in th
e community deserves real support from government.
My friends, the Rudd Gillard government should not have adopted just one of the
Henry Review s recommendations and largely ignored the other 137. Some of Henry s re
commendations are impractical and a few wrong-headed. Some, though, such as his
recommendations for lower, simpler, fairer personal income taxes and an end to t
he money-go-round that traps people in poverty should be the foundation of Austr
alia s next round of tax reform.
So within a month of taking office, an incoming Coalition government will publis
h all the modeling associated with all the Henry recommendations to foster the t
ax debate that Australia needs and now must have. Acknowledging that tax reform
is much harder to pursue with a $40 billion deficit than with Peter Costello s $20
billion surplus, even so, an incoming Coalition government will within 12 month
s of coming to office, an incoming Coalition government will outline its plans a
nd its timetable for further reform.
Rest assured that no one will accuse the next Coalition government of being all
talk and no action. Change for the better is coming and it will run to a strict
timetable.
But I ve got to say ladies and gentlemen, this has been a tough campaign and it wi
ll continue to be a tough campaign. We are running against a first term federal
Labor government, we are running against five state Labor governments and we are
running against the whole weight of a union movement that basically just bankro
lls the Labor Party.
As the election draws closer, more and more Labor MPs will be disguising themsel
ves as community independents. On the ground, Labor MPs are already treating thi
s election as an auction to be won by the most irresponsible local spender. By s
andbagging marginal seats, this bad federal government hopes to chisel its way t
o a dishonourable victory like the South Australian and Tasmanian Labor governme
nts did earlier this year. We cannot let that happen.
And I say to everyone right around Australia concerned about where this governme
nt is going and about what is happening to our political culture , make no mista
ke, to change this government you have to throw out your local Labor MP.
So Labor s re-election strategy is based on fear and lies. Labor s advertising blitz
will be all fear and smear. Soon the airways will be full of it, letter boxes w
ill be stuffed with it. The public, though, are not mugs. Why should they give t
he Labor Party a second chance, people are thinking, when it wouldn t give its own
leader one? In fact ladies and gentlemen, the only unfair dismissal that anyone
has asked me about in the course of this campaign is Kevin Rudd s.
Over the past eight months, growing disapproval of the Rudd-Gillard government h
as become an increasing readiness to change it. I want to say to all my colleagu
es, especially to Warren Truss and to Julie Bishop, that your steadiness has bee
n an important part of our earning the people s trust as a credible alternative go
vernment.
And so I say to the Australian people, my team is ready to govern. We won t have t
o learn on the job because we ve done the job before. Fifteen members of the Coali
tion shadow cabinet have already been ministers. Seven members of the shadow cab
inet have already been cabinet ministers in the most effective government of rec
ent times.
And so ladies and gentlemen as we gird ourselves for the final two weeks of this
campaign I want to say how proud and pleased and honoured I am to be this party s
standard bearer.
As a liberal, I support lower taxes, smaller government and greater freedom. As
a conservative, I support a fair go for families and respect for values which ha
ve stood the test of time. As an Australian, I support policies which work and w
hich don t trifle with our country s future. Mine is a genial pragmatic political cr
eed based above all on respect for the people and the communities that have prod
uced here perhaps the most free, fair and prosperous society on earth.
We are a great country but we have been let down by our government. Let s not give
a bad government the second chance that it does not deserve and that our countr
y cannot afford. Let s change this bad government before it can do any more damage
. Let s once more give Australia the good government that a great country deserves
.
And let s start, from day one, repaying the debt, stopping the big new taxes, stop
ping the boats and helping struggling families. Ladies and gentlemen, this elect
ion is the supreme challenge of my life. I will stand up for Australia. I will s
tand up for real action and I know that you will join me.

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