Prime Minister of Australia

Speech to the Minerals Industry Parliamentary Dinner, Canberra

31st May 2012

Friends, it’s a tribute to your industry’s importance to this country that Minerals Week has become an institution on our political calendar, now into its fourth decade.

Mining is our economy’s “strong right arm”.

Indigenous students to study at Cambridge and Oxford

30th May 2012

Three young Indigenous Australians have been given the opportunity to study at Oxford and Cambridge, after being named as recipients of Charlie Perkins Scholarships.

As of two years ago, there had never been an Indigenous Australian studying for an undergraduate or postgraduate degree at either of these British universities.

Fair Go swallowed by education gap

No country can really claim to be the land of the fair go unless that fair go is extended from the start, in our classrooms and our school playgrounds.

But, as we read on the front page of The Advertiser (21/5/12), too many Australian school students are being denied a fair go because of the gap between rich and poor that has developed in our schools.

Peter Garrett

24th May 2012

A tireless worker on and off the field

Yesterday, the nation lost a hero.

Jim Stynes was a man who inspired fans across the nation playing Australia’s game.

An Irishman, imported from the other side of the world when he was just 18 to play a game foreign to him, he quickly became a master of it winning the Brownlow Medal in 1991.

Julia Gillard

21st Mar 2012