“The whole time I was a union leader, we had to put up with John Howard and Tony Abbott attacking workers’ conditions.”

When I entered federal parliament at the end of 2007, I was appointed parliamentary secretary for disabilities.

Productivity is driven at the enterprise level. Better wages, better performing workplaces, are driven at the workplace level.

There is a history and a reality that we cannot ignore. The challenge before us is real, the questions we grapple with as elemental as life and death.

Labor is at its best when we are the party of ideas and action – ideas that empower the powerless and actions that build a better Australia for the long term.

Labor should not be about creating monuments on hills or statues in parks. Labors monuments and statues are when a young person can find a job, when a person with disability can get access to the ordinary life that others take for granted.

What I believe to be every Australian’s right – a good, safe job with proper pay and conditions.

To the best of my knowledge, when I became national secretary and, indeed, Victorian secretary, the – my predecessors in the union had detected wrong activities, activities which aren’t in the best traditions of the AWU or, indeed, trade unionism.

Trusting people to pursue their own futures invariably provides better outcomes. Money goes where it is needed, rather than being absorbed by administration costs.

My preference is that employees pay their union dues, but what I also get is that I’d rather someone be in the union than not in the union.

I’ve spent my whole working life standing up for workers. Didn’t matter if it was the two trapped miners at Beaconsfield or professional netballers or indeed factory workers or construction workers.

I believe the leader’s ultimate job is to spread hope.

I’m not concentrated or concerned with any other factors rather than just being able to do the best job that I can.

To do my job well, I have to be a good listener. The listening is so much more important than the talking.

London is a fantastic creator of jobs – but many of these jobs are going to people who don’t originate in this country.

There is no job more important than parenting. This I believe.

When you are public figure, you’re an athlete or actor, that is your job to speak out on certain things. I think you speak out on what you desire to speak out on or your passionate about.

All actors who have been around for a long time, which I have, and have been skint for long periods, which I have, find it difficult to turn down jobs. If I turn anything down my stomach turns over. I feel sick. It feels like gambling.

Central and western Pennsylvania has one of the best workforces in the country and this will provide job training, new skills and additional resources for those trying to find a job.