Top 22 Bill Shorten Quotes

Poverty wastes people; it wastes opportunity.

Australia’s economic future depends upon getting smarter. This means investing in the skills and knowledge of our workforce.

I believe marriage equality is a simple change that sends a powerful message. It is a chance for us to say, as a nation, to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex Australians: your love is equal under the law.

There are good reasons to push for more Indigenous Labor MPs, not just on equity but also for what they can contribute to Labor.

The appalling rate of incarceration among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples demands we create justice targets under the Closing the Gap framework.

Both casual, unthinking discrimination and deliberate, malicious homophobia erode self-confidence and undermine mental health. Both are far too common, not just in our schoolyards or online but in sporting clubs, in the outer and even in our national parliament.

Trusting people to pursue their own futures invariably provides better outcomes. Money goes where it is needed, rather than being absorbed by administration costs.

Labor is at its best when we are the party of ideas and action – ideas that empower the powerless and actions that build a better Australia for the long term.

We have to become a learning society, committed to quality education from early childhood right through to re-training in later life.

Labor should not be about creating monuments on hills or statues in parks. Labor’s monuments and statues are when a young person can find a job, when a person with disability can get access to the ordinary life that others take for granted.

Our world is moving forward on climate change. If Australia goes backwards, we will be going alone.

Safe Schools has been labelled a lot of things: Marxism, cultural relativism, ‘grooming,’ and part of something called the ‘rainbow ideology.’ But Safe Schools is not about imposing an ideology or an ‘ism.’ It’s about teaching our kids to treat everyone equally, to understand rather than judge.

Anyone who‘s been a teenager, or raised one, knows growing up is hard. Kids can be cruel to their peers, and many young people go through tough times and experience low moments.

Labor must work harder to attract and retain members. The party should be cheaper to join with discounted rates available for union members as well as for students, pensioners, and people out of work.

We should never seek to compete with economies in our region by cutting pay and conditions – that’s a race to the bottom we can’t win.

There are far too many people in prison with poorly understood disability, particularly cognitive and mental disabilities. We cannot tolerate a system that just processes people rather than a system that fairly administers justice.

Ending discrimination and extending equality should always be a national priority.

When someone has found not just another person they can live with but a person they can’t live without, they should have an equal right to the true qualities of a bond that runs deeper than any law.

If I am elected leader, my shadow opposition team will actively incorporate the policy contributions of all our members by instituting policy action committees as recommend by the 2010 National Review.

My father left school at 14 and became a fitter. He didn’t want to be at school.

It is devastating that jail is seen as a rite of passage for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, part of the natural order of things. It is an outrage that there is an attitude that this is normal. This is not normal. We can’t shrug our shoulders and say this is just a ‘fact of life’ in remote Australia.

There is no doubt our earth is warming and our seas rising – or that humankind is the cause. There is no evidence to refute this – or any genuine scientific counterargument in the climate change debate.