MARK DREYFUS MP

We are going to see measured consideration of Australia's national security legislation. We are going to see discussion conducted slightly outside the atmosphere of partisan political debate about where the balance should be struck between the protection of individual liberty and arming our authorities with appropriate powers.

I very much hope that this terrific tradition which has now been running for five years at Edithvale Bowling Club continues into the future, because it provides an opportunity for those who have just entered the sport to compete in a way that might not otherwise be available to them.

Chileans are a strong and resilient people. As floods and fires are for many Australians, earthquakes and tremors are a part of life for Chileans. But the fifth most powerful earthquake on record - since 1900 - is one of the worst to have hit Chile and has left some areas of the country in ruins.

The only fraud that is really relevant to the debate on this bill is not the imagined fraud - the myth of electoral fraud - that the opposition continue to speak about, not the fig leaf of electoral fraud that the opposition relied on to introduce the measures that we are now removing as we are in office - the measures that they introduced when they amended the electoral act to reduce the right to vote, to reduce the enfranchisement of Australians, in particular to reduce the ability of young people to get on the roll and to stay on the roll - it is the fraud that is being perpetrated on the Australian people by those opposite.

In my electorate alone, nearly $100 million has been invested in primary and secondary schools under the Building the Education Revolution and Primary Schools for the 21st Century funding.

There is a great deal of care that has been taken by the government in devising the provisions not merely to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act but to continue with the measures which will be regarded as special measures, such as the income management regime.

There are many arguments against the death penalty. We have heard many of them in speeches by other members in this debate. They are multiple arguments and they are overlapping arguments against abolition, but, for me, for our society to kill one of its members is an act which diminishes us all. We should believe in life and not in death and it is a matter that can be reduced to terms seemingly as simple as that. It does not aid the victims to judicially kill.

Today I want to wish all Australians who celebrate the lunar new year a happy and prosperous Year of the Tiger. The Year of the Tiger is the third year of the 12-year cycle of the lunar calendar. The tiger symbolises strength, courage and fight. 2010 promises to be a happy, prosperous and healthy year, and I wish the very best of luck to everyone who was born a tiger.

The Rudd government's economic stimulus plan continues to support jobs and working families in Isaacs and is helping to make our communities better and stronger.

Australia has managed to avoid a recession through the worst global downturn in more than 75 years. Australia's economy is the only advanced economy that expanded in the year to June 2009. According to the IMFs World Economic Outlook update, Australia's economic growth was positive, and Australia was the only advanced economy to achieve this.