Speech to the formation meeting of the Blue Mountains/Hawkesbury YLA

I wish to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land we meet on today. I pay my respect to their elders past and present.

I would first like to congratulate all of you who are here today. You are about to join a very exclusive club.

It is a club so exclusive, less that 1% of the population are part of it.

The club you are joining is chaotic, passionate and often very frustrating.

It is a club where you put yourself at the forefront of the discussion of ideas and more importantly commit yourself to finding solutions.

Welcome to the club that is formal organised party politics - in this case the Australian Labor Party.

I joined the Labor Party when I was 19 for the very simple reason that I wanted to change the world-immediately.

It is taking a little longer than I expected.

While my commitment to work towards change is now matched with patience and perseverance, my passion remains in the belief that the principles and values of the Labor Party are the best chance we have to make that change for the better.

Australia is a nation of abundant wealth-in our environment, in our people, in our diversity and in our spirit. We are able to care for all of our citizens.

That we do not is a burning injustice.

I do not and cannot accept that in a wealthy nation like Australia we tolerate the poverty, the violence and the plain unfairness that too many Australians experience day after day.

We all deserve the opportunity to live with dignity.

We all deserve to be treated with respect.

None of our citizens should be shut out of our nation's prosperity.

This is why I joined the Australian Labor Party.

The Labor Party is the only party committed to the dignity and security of all Australians, to prosperity built on equity rather than exploitation.

It remains the only party with a social justice heart that can actually form a government.

My journey to the Labor Party began through my late grandmother.

She quietly encouraged me to pursue political activity.

Influenced by her father who was the president of the Dubbo ALP Branch in the early 1900s, my grandmother taught me that only Labor would make sure that working people got a fair go.

More importantly she taught me that it was better to act than to talk.

Tired of arguing with Liberals at parties and sick of boring my family to death with my opinions on the state of the world I stopped talking and started acting when I went to uni and joined first the campus ALP Club and then the Labor Party.

My involvement in student organisations was the first time that as a young person I felt I was able to make a difference.

I became involved in campaigns for better income and housing support for students, for increased childcare, and for access to welfare and legal services that students could afford.

It was through the work of student representatives in student unions that these campaigns were transformed into tangible services for students.

As many of you already know these services are rapidly disappearing as a result of John Howard's voluntary student unionism legislation - a more spiteful and shortsighted piece of legislation you will rarely see. It is one of the things a Rudd Labor Government must fix.

After uni I worked for the Australian Student Traineeship Foundation [ASTF] and remained active in my local ALP.

The ASTF was charged with improving the transition of students in years 11 and 12 from school to work. Working with local schools, employers and communities, the foundation supported local partnerships that trained young people in real workplaces with real employers.

The ASTF gave me the opportunity to travel to over 100 communities in NSW and work with these partnerships to provide work training for their young people.

It was a model where each community drew on its own strengths and worked together to find solutions.

It showed me that good ideas, backed by responsive government programs can make a real difference to people's lives and their communities.

It also confirmed my view of the value of education in its ability to transform lives.

Although I loved my work at the ASTF I wanted to get more involved in what was happening in the Labor Party and the Labor government in NSW.

I ultimately wanted to be closer to where decisions were made. I wanted to be closer to influencing those decisions.

I was fortunate to be asked to come and work for Carmel Tebbutt who was at that time a newly elected MLC.

I still at that stage never really considered seriously actually becoming a member of parliament - for while that is one way to work for change there are plenty of others - in the community, in the Labor party, in your workplace and in the law.

But enough about me - let's talk about you.

By being here today you have chosen the oldest labor based part in the world as the start of the work for change.

Strap yourself in for a bumpy ride.

The Labor Party is a maze of jargon, traditions, processes and Machiavellian relationships that are often confusing and frustrating.

The Labor party is also the place where you will meet like minded people aged 15 - 100.

These people are in every community.

They are working for workers rights through their unions.

They are working for women's rights.

They are on the management committees of neighbourhood centres, women's refuges, and youth refuges.

They are running playgroups and fighting to retain green space in their local communities.

Labor people care about eh environment and they are fighting for our future.

Labor people bristle when they see injustice - they are at the forefront of working towards a more humane and fair refugee system.

Labor people are organising around equal rights for gay men, lesbians and transgender people.

Labor people are fighting for the future of student organisations and a better education system.

A system based on merit and not on how much money your parents have.

Alice Walker the famous American writer and feminist once said that the best way for people to give up their power is to believe that they don't have any.

Labor people always believe that they as individuals have power.

Labor people look for others to join together to use that power - in their families, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplaces and increasingly through the Internet - to make a better world.

Young Labor is another vehicle for young people to make an impact not just in the Labor Party but also in the community.

Young Labor is a place for activism, for debate and for putting young people's perspective on how we can make our communities better for young people.

It is also a place where you will learn about campaigning.

As part of that exclusive 1% club of organised politics - you are in a very small minority.

To transform the commitment to fairness and equality into decisions made by local, state and federal governments you need to learn how to convince others of our cause.

In Australia this is not such a difficult task. Australian's understand fairness and recognise injustice - it is part of who we are.

Labor is most successful when we appeal to our better selves. This year's federal election will do just that.

Thanks for inviting me here today.

In the words of Bono from U2 at this year's ARIA's when he was talking about Peter Garrett and Midnight Oil he said:

"Midnight Oil dare to dream of a better Australia. They dare to dream for a better Australia for more Australians"

I welcome you to the exclusive club and look forward to working with you for a better Australia.