To be a member of the Labor Party is to be an optimist - optimistic about the future of Australia optimistic about the ability of government to make a difference.

On Australia Day 2010 as we enter this second decade of the 21st century Australians can be optimistic about our future but we cannot afford to mistake optimism for complacency.

The Australian Government's decision to take on the dominant funding role for the entire public hospital system is designed to: end the blame game eliminate waste and to shoulder the funding burden of the rapidly rising health costs of the future.

Because the time has come well and truly come for all peoples of our great country for all citizens of our great commonwealth for all Australians - those who are indigenous and those who are not - to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation.

I deeply believe that if the Australian Labor Party a party of which I have been a proud member for more than 30 years is to have the best future for our nation then it must change fundamentally its culture and to end the power of faceless men. Australia must be governed by the people not by the factions.

It is our job as members of parliament to legislate with an eye to the long term future to look over the horizon beyond the next election and ensure that as far as we can what we do today will make Australia a better place a safer place for future generations to live in.

But Australia faces additional regional and global challenges also crucial to our nation's future - climate change questions of energy and food security the rise of China and the rise of India. And we need a strong system of global and regional relationships and institutions to underpin stability.

With nine degrees of warming computer models project that Australia will look like a disaster movie. Habitats for most vertebrates will vanish. Water supply to the Murray-Darling Basin will fall by half severely curtailing food production.

Australia is the only island continent on the planet which means that changes caused by planet-warming pollution - warmer seas which can drive stronger storms and more acidic oceans which wreak havoc on the food chain - are even more deadly here.

I love food all types of food. I love Korean food Japanese Italian French. In Australia we don't have a distinctive Australian food so we have food from everywhere all around the world. We're very multicultural so we grew up with lots of different types of food.