From the Blue Mountains to the Southern Highlands and from Batemans Bay up to the Northern Rivers and Northern Tablelands, this bushfire season has been devastating for my home state of New South Wales, with 4.9 million hectares of land having been burnt.

Since taking on this portfolio I’ve tried to talk with as many community sector organisations as I can. More importantly, I’ve tried to visit them. I think that seeing and understanding the places where organisations do their work is an important part of understanding that work. You can sometimes learn a lot about the lived values of an organisation from the spaces they create – and it can change the conversation to sit in a room that just earlier that day was used to meet clients or host a playgroup.

I couldn’t be prouder than I am today - to be part of the Labor team. On Sunday Bill Shorten told us that from the very first day, a Labor government would strive to deliver equal pay. And today, Tanya and Brendan have announced very significant legal and institutional changes that will do just that.

After decades of enforced silence, business in our parliament was suspended last month to publicly acknowledge and apologise for the pain that was caused by institutional child sexual abuse.

Since its creation in 2009, the National Security College has acted as nexus between academic thinking and government activity. I think that over the coming years, the National Security College will be seen as one of the more important innovations of the last government. It represents a significant intellectual investment in our policy capacity.

Thanks for inviting me to speak to you all today. I acknowledge the significant contribution of the National Council of Women, Australia in promoting issues important to the lives of Australian women, since its establishment in 1931.

When I'm out talking to people in the great state of New South Wales there is one thing that comes through loud and clear, and

that is that people know that you cannot trust a Liberal government when it comes to health.

This is the third time that the government has refused to release the report of the religious freedom review.

On a very lovely winter afternoon back in July this year, while the sun went down, I stood in Bangalow next to a stand of eucalypts and tallowwoods. I listened to Linda Sparrow as she explained the challenges she faced in her work as president of Bangalow Koalas.

I want to talk this evening to some of the people who this government has forgotten; people who live up and down the east coast of New South Wales in places like Lismore, Casino, Batemans Bay and Nowra.