Text of Mark Latham's speech

[struggle4progress]

October 9, 2004

<snip> We made a decision to run a positive campaign. We wanted to support opportunity for the Australian people and we'll continue to advance our belief and our policies in the parliament in the coming three years. We put forward clear choices to the Australian people, choices about the future of Medicare, about fair funding for our schools, about opportunities in our TAFE and university system and also in saving the Australian environment.

We decided to put forward our positive alternatives in the big areas of health, education, environment but also on national security and the economy. I'm glad we did that because I know for a fact that so many Labor supporters and Labor voters today felt good about supporting our cause because of the choices and alternatives we put forward.

We ran on principle, we ran on our positive beliefs about hope and opportunity in this country and I want to thank the many, many people who voted Labor today supporting our policies and supporting us into the future. I thank you very much. <snip>

Of course tonight is not our night, it's not the night that we were hoping for but I've certainly found that the democratic experience is something we all should be grateful for in this country. Australian democracy is strong when the people are engaged and they've given us fine consideration through the course of the campaign and the three-year parliamentary term. I've had a lot of people say that we've made the opposition strong and when there's a strong opposition Australian democracy is so much stronger. We'll continue to do that in the coming parliamentary term, we'll make sure the government is held to account, that we keep pressure on. <snip>

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11027921%5E1702,00.html