As our economy faces up to potential labour shortages due to our ageing population and as it moves to a new level of sophistication to compete with the rest of the world, we're going to need every Australian on board pulling their weight, rejoining the workforce, gaining new skills. Writing off individuals and communities suffering from poverty just creates a dead weight for our economy to drag along.

Climate change is real and it is caused to a significant extent by human activity.

I know reform is never easy. But I know reform is right.

If we change the way the electricity sector operates, we can bring down our levels of carbon pollution, and continue the crucial task of tackling climate change. Putting a price on carbon would do this.

Our future growth relies on competitiveness and innovation, skills and productivity... and these in turn rely on the education of our people.

Here in Australia we do get impacted by global economic events. But we should have some confidence that our economy has got strong underlying fundamentals.

In Australia, average temperatures have risen almost one degree since 1910, and each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the one before. That warming is real. Its consequences are real. And it will change our lives in real and practical ways.