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So much of what we call Australian life and legend is West Australian life and legend.
Tim Winton's Cloudstreet
Bert Facey's A Fortunate Life
Jimmy Chan's Bran Nue Dae
Randolph Stowe's Merry-go-round in the Sea
Dorothy Hewett's Fields of Heaven
Rolf Harris's first watercolour landscapes --- all began here.
The penetrating work Fred Williams painted on his two trips to the Pilbara outback with Rio Tinto back in 1979 are surely some of the most special Australian landscapes hanging anywhere today.
We are blessed back in Melbourne that this series is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria - a particularly generous gift of Rio to the gallery in the Centenary of Federation year (2001).
So even back East people gaze at images of the West and do get some of the mystique. The raw of the Australianess here.
Of course our greatest wartime Prime Minister John Curtin spent most of his life here, despite all those long train journeys to Canberra.
One of our greatest peacetime Prime Ministers - Bob Hawke - grew up here.
Henry Lawson came seeking gold in these parts.
The strands and shoals of the Labor movement's thinking for a hundred and fifty years gestated in these coastal towns, these salt-threatened farmlands, these Anzac shires.
The Lighthorsemen who charged the guns for the last time in military history and took the Wells of Beersheba grew up on farms here.
Most of the dead of Gallipoli proudly called these towns their homes. The proportion of the war dead - on the Somme, the Burma Road, Kokoda - was greatest per capita here.
And the widowing, and communal depletion and vain longing for talent and humour and mateship ill lost that would never come home again to see the sunset over the waves.
The most isolated of the civilisations of the West, yours is also one of the most influential.
This was the frontier not just of gold and grasslands and cattle wealth, but the frontier of ideas - John Curtin's, John Stone's, Joe Dawkins' - that shaped the nation in its years and hours of decision.
When asked on his deathbed what qualities unique to this region his comrades-in-arms in Tobruk and Bardia and New Guinea shared, the great Perth writer John Hepworth said, "It's a kind of...valid innocence. I can think of no better phrase than that."
It was quoted to Kim Beazley, and he said in return:
"Well, yes, it's right, valid innocence. But West Australia also produces the blackest corporate villains in our nation, crooks without parallel. My homeland, my heartland, I think, could be soberly labelled the garden of good and evil, in equal parts."
What Kim meant, perhaps, was Western Australia is unique in its controversial placement in our economy, and our history - our striving for a place in the world, in our big, bruising story of land subdued, and gouged, and shovelled overseas.
Its geographical closeness to Asia, it geological abundance that gives it such influence and clout in our economy, and the region's economy, its as yet unwritten future in Margaret River and Busselton, the Pilbara, and the Kimberly -- and in that great once-and-future dreamscape the Ord -- bequeath it, uniquely and unrepeatably, a continent of possibilities.
As big as Scandinavia, Germany, Holland and Belgium put together, it is a vast book yet unwritten, in whose pages the artistic and dramatic arts movement's part is primal, unstifled, heroic and evolving.
It is an unwritten saga whose great pirate battles and have not yet begun and whose voyage to safe harbour will take centuries.
It is the leading edge, and perhaps the dress rehearsal, of the larger Australian story too.
It is where this country is going. Here is the great preview.
It should not be lost on any of us that the building of new liveable cities on the coast will be one of the great tasks of our society in the decades ahead.
Nationally, in 1900 about 60 percent of people lived in the bush. Now it's about 15 percent.
Not surprisingly Australians have moved to our cities, to where the jobs are, in the past hundred years. More and more are already, and will continue to, gravitate to coastal areas.
The Australian population is of course only getting bigger - so how do we create more great cities? It's an important question.
It's why I mentioned before the future of places like Margaret River and Busselton and the Kimberly. What happens here in these places over the course of the 50 and 100 years ahead deserves careful contemplation.
Something else that deserves through contemplation is that the rhythm of life for Australians is lasting longer for us (on average) than it ever has before.
The economists call it our ageing population.
While the phase is accurate I believe this choice of words does somewhat camouflage in negative tone what is in fact a great gift, a great celebration - that we are living longer.
But it does undoubtedly bring its challenges. There is no use in working hard, living long but retiring poor.
The goal of lifetime income security is hence a most worthy one.
So let's be clear: superannuation works - the story of superannuation is a strong story.
It is already delivering retirement security to millions of Australians and 12 percent will only make the story better.
A 12% Super Guarantee will provide a 30 year old on average wages with over $22,000 a year more, than they would receive on the age pension alone. And a real benefit of $108,000 more than if the Super Guarantee had remained at 9%.
For an 18 year old entering the workforce today on average full-time wages, the increase to 12% SG translates into an improved real lump sum of $205,000 on retirement.
And with our commitment to make superannuation concessions fairer for 3.5 million low income workers who currently get little or no concession on their super savings - we are strengthening superannuation even more. And ensuring that it is not just for the well off.
This Government's super reforms are projected to boost Australia's total superannuation savings by $550 billion by 2036.
A universal contribution rate of 12% is also very good for helping our kids and grandchildren with improved fiscal responsibility well down the track.
Treasury projects that the original superannuation guarantee of 9 percent as saving $7.4 billion in age pension outlays by 2030-31.
The increase of the SG to 12 percent is projected to save an additional $2.6 billion, so the total projected save in age pension outlays in 2030 is $10 billion.
The Gillard Government's vision of lifetime income security for all Australians is of course about much more than numbers.
We do provide significant support for the arts. This financial year, the Australian Government expect to spend over $740 million on core arts and cultural support.
Significant funding has also been provided to enhance Australia's film tax offsets and provide additional support for new artistic works by young and emerging artists.
In addition to Government programs, it is vitally important for the artistic community to benefit from a strong flow of private capital.
And of course, one of the best sources of long-term capital is superannuation.
The superannuation industry is a great support of Australian art.
This includes both the large funds, but also self-managed superannuation.
For example, $623 million is invested in collectables by self managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) alone (at 30 June 2011).
This has grown from $581 million at 30 June 2010 over 7 percent over the last year.
The Government did not accept the Cooper Review recommendation to prevent SMSF's investing in art and collectables
Instead we are working through tougher regulations on how these are held and stored to prevent members getting a present day benefit
I understand this may have caused uncertainty but I would like to acknowledge the constructive role played by Dianne.
The considerable historian Paul Kelly lately wrote of the Labor Party:
"Each Labor generation must re-interpret party faiths for its own times; yet the evidence is that Labor is locked in a crisis of belief and identity. Perhaps it is because over the past 120 years much of Labor's foundational purpose has been achieved."
I believe such end of history predictions are worth contemplating carefully but I also believe that reaching such a conclusion is definitely premature.
How can the purposes of Labor - of this Government - have been achieved while such a long ‘to do' list remains on our philosophical blackboard.
The values of opportunity and equality and having a national vision remain as relevant as ever.
We still need to deliver a better deal for people with a disability and their carers.
We still need to fix the inequity of women's pay.
We still need reforms like a fairer and simpler tax system and assist the shrewd development of a services based economy to take full advantage of the re-emergence of Asia.
We still need a strong, ongoing, innovative commitment to investing in all levels of education.
We still need to reduce pollution and transform Australia into a sustainable, low carbon economy.
And we still need to strive toward that goal of lifetime income security.
Superannuation, as each of you in this audience knows, is one of the institutional pillars that make Australia a better place to live - a lifestyle superpower if you will.
Along with Medicare, the minimum wage, the age pension and soon - a National Disability Insurance Scheme - these things like super make Australia great.
And so it is a pleasure to be here this evening, in this inspiring venue, in this great state to talk with you about our great plans for superannuation.