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Tony Abbott’s Remarks To The Shadow Cabinet

Federal Parliament sits tomorrow for the first time in 2013.

Today, the ALP caucus met and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott held a meeting of his Shadow Cabinet.

This is Liberal Party video of Abbott addressing the Shadow Cabinet:

Text of remarks by Tony Abbott to the Shadow Cabinet.

This is obviously the first Shadow Cabinet meeting of an election year. It is particularly important that we give the Australian people the kind of good government that they expect. We can’t take anything for granted but they are looking to us to provide a better government after the next election.

Now, the thing is that we have been talking, as you all know, as all of you have been doing for the last two years and people expected us for most of that time to hold the Government to account and we certainly did that, but I think what people are now looking for is for a little bit more from us. They want us not so much to be an Opposition but to be an alternative government and I think you would have noticed from Julie, from me, from Warren, from Joe that that is exactly what you’ve been getting over the last few weeks.

We did have our Real Solutions Plan launched just the other day and there are real solutions for the Australian people in that plan. The carbon tax gone because that’s the best thing we can do to ease the pressure on cost of living; the mining tax gone because that’s the best thing we can do to boost investment in jobs; the boats stopped because what’s been done before can be done again; the budget brought back into the black because government needs the resources to spend on the things that people really need.

So, there is a positive plan. I think the public are more and more conscious of the fact that things can be better and like me I think the public can have confidence in the plan because they know that they can have confidence in the team.

I want to say to all of you, well done last year, and particularly well done during the period when most people have been on holidays. Julie you have just come back with Scott from a trip to Sri Lanka. Warren, you spent much of the time touring the Pacific Highway. Many of us have been with our colleagues in the flood and fire affected parts of Australia.

Joe and Andrew, you have been working very hard on the policies and the fiscal plan. So, I am confident that we can give the Australian people what they so very much want and need after the next election. I think we can give it to them, I really do. What we are on about is empowering you, the people, rather than empowering us, the government, or us, the alternative government. That’s got to be what it is about. It has got to be about the Australian people between now and election day and hopefully after the election people will feel that they finally have a government that has their best interests, not its own survival, at heart.

So, it’s going to be a big year and a lot of hard work between now and polling day.

AustralianPolitics.com
Malcolm Farnsworth
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