Bill Shorten
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.Collection: Equality
Australia's economic future depends upon getting smarter. This means investing in the skills and knowledge of our workforce.Collection: Knowledge
Ending discrimination and extending equality should always be a national priority.Collection: Equality
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.
When I entered federal parliament at the end of 2007, I was appointed parliamentary secretary for disabilities.
We commissioned an independent statutory economic body - the Productivity Commission - to review the possibility of funding a disability scheme. The commission returned with a view that it could. Then it becomes an issue of national will.
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.
I want to build a Big Labor party. A party of big ideas. A party which is deeply connected to the community. A party which reflects our diverse nation.
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.
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.
To the best of my knowledge, when I became national secretary and, indeed, Victorian secretary, the - my predecessors in the union had detected wrong activities, activities which aren't in the best traditions of the AWU or, indeed, trade unionism.
Productivity is driven at the enterprise level. Better wages, better performing workplaces, are driven at the workplace level.
Workplace relations is about getting the best out of people. An argument which says that the only way we can compete with other nations in the world is engaging in a race to the bottom in terms of pay rates, penalty rates, protections on rosters, getting rid of family friendly provisions - that is not Australia's future.
Poverty wastes people; it wastes opportunity.
My father left school at 14 and became a fitter. He didn't want to be at school.
Both my parents were far smarter than the opportunities they had.
This is what I think about poverty: why waste the potential of people? You never know what you've got going in society unless you give people a chance.
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.
Safe Schools lets young people who identify as gay know that they have every right to be accepted and respected for who they are. We should never underestimate how important this message is - or the consequences of trying to shout it down.
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.
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.
The appalling rate of incarceration among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples demands we create justice targets under the Closing the Gap framework.
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.
We cannot let it be said of modern Australia that the colour of your skin determines whether or not you end up in jail.
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 are good reasons to push for more Indigenous Labor MPs, not just on equity but also for what they can contribute to Labor.
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.
We will always be a fair wage nation in a low wage region.
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.
We have to become a learning society, committed to quality education from early childhood right through to re-training in later life.
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.
Our world is moving forward on climate change. If Australia goes backwards, we will be going alone.
If we are strategic, if we are smart, Australia can power our future prosperity with solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy.
We all have choices in history. Some are more important than others.
The supreme challenge of Labor is to recognise our 'revolutionary moment' when it arrives. And to have the courage to seize it - wholly, boldly, and completely.
I've spent my whole working life standing up for workers. Didn't matter if it was the two trapped miners at Beaconsfield or professional netballers or indeed factory workers or construction workers.Collection: Construction Workers
Once upon a time, I thought denial was a river in Egypt. It's actually the attitude of the Abbott government.Collection: Attitude
What I believe to be every Australian's right - a good, safe job with proper pay and conditions.Collection: Jobs
Fleeing persecution is not a crime. And we do not seek to pander to a noisy, tiny minority who will never embrace modern multicultural Australia. But there are important truths we must face. There is a history and a reality that we cannot ignore. The challenge before us is real, the questions we grapple with as elemental as life and death.Collection: Real
I'm a Christian and a supporter of marriage equality under the law.Collection: Christian
My preference is that employees pay their union dues, but what I also get is that I'd rather someone be in the union than not in the union.Collection: Unions
Modern Australian trade unionism and the unionist that I am doesn't rely on a class war view that somehow that the interests of employees and managers are in two separate spheres and they're irreconcilable. I believe that when people can go to work and be happy, satisfied, engaged, where the employer is getting employees who feel their interests are aligned with the employer, you get productivity. This is the future of Australian workplaces.Collection: War
Labor should not be about creating monuments on hills or statues in parks. Labors 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.Collection: Jobs
I'm proud of my record of negotiating agreements, representing people and making sure that both employers and employees could get the best out of going to work every day.Collection: Agreement
What I've done as a union leader and what literally thousands of other union representatives do, is make sure that we have co-operation in the workplace. What I get is that where employees are well treated, employers do well.Collection: Leader
The whole time I was a union leader, we had to put up with John Howard and Tony Abbott attacking workers' conditions. I'm proud of being a moderate trade union official, working co-operatively between employees and employers. I'm interested in better wages for workers, better safety, job security, and, profitable companies, because I understand that if you get co-operation in the workplace, everyone wins.Collection: Jobs
I think it is a cornerstone of our electoral system that you raise electoral funds for elections but that doesn't mean that therefore the implication can be made that the recipients are incapable of transacting their interests and their duties towards people any differently.Collection: Mean
What really matters in a workplace, what helps an employer if you've got a unionised workforce is if your shop stewards know the rules of the game, if your safety reps are taught to be able to examine situations to make sure the workplace is more safety. Better informed delegates, better workplace safety saves companies money. Unions are very good at safety. We are good at teaching delegates how to resolve disputes.Collection: Teaching