ANGUS TAYLOR:

Thank you very much. Libby, Caroline, Michaelia, of course, Matt and other colleagues and many Liberal Party friends and supporters here tonight, it’s wonderful to see you here. It’s been wonderful to be in the West since Monday. It’s good to spend a week here actually and spend some serious time and see what’s going on here in the West. And I'm just struck by the sense of optimism that I've always seen over here. I've worked over here for many years before I went into politics and there's always this great sense of going and getting things done. A great sense of optimism, including in the Liberal Party, despite the fact that we've gone through some tough times. I'm really struck by the buoyancy, the optimism of the people in this room and others that I've had the chance to catch up with this week.

One of the things I'm very fond of saying when I come to Western Australia is that over on the east coast there’s a tendency to see the success of the West as just good luck, and it's not. The success of the West has come from decades of hard work from incredibly talented people, incredibly talented people and as I said, I was lucky enough to work with many of them before politics, but your success is a result of hard work, entrepreneurship, of chasing opportunity, of aspiration. All the things that the Liberal Party believes have been absolutely central in the success of this great state and right at the heart of that has been talented people.

Now, as the Liberal Party, if we're to succeed in the coming years, both in Western Australia and federally, we have to identify, we have to mentor, nurture, and support talented people, local people in their communities, leaders in their communities, people who are able to campaign, people who are able to lead teams of campaigners - that's the secret. And we're living in an era where talent is the key. I learned this in business, that without talent, you have nothing. I've seen it in community organisations, without talent, you have nothing. And it is true in the Liberal Party as well. Now, we've gone through a tough trot here and around Australia and we're going through that in New South Wales at the moment, but I know the way out is to identify those graduates, give them the opportunity to do great things and they will. We want to make sure there is a choice for both the Australian people and the Western Australian people at the next election. There must be a choice and it must be a real choice with real differences. A choice that reflects our values, our beliefs in the importance of the private sector, our belief in the importance of small businesses; the backbone of our country, our belief that the vision of our country should be the vision and aspirations of every Australian and every Western Australian - that's the key.

And we can only deliver that choice if we get ourselves doing the right things within the Liberal Party. I am so excited by this program. I think you've nailed it. I really do. I saw it, I opened the brochure up, my team showed me earlier and I've been trying to work out what we need to do in New South Wales, and I opened this absolutely fantastic booklet and said to my team, this is it! They have laid it out. I am taking this back to New South Wales and I'm saying we have the formula here and as is so often the case in Australia, it was developed in Western Australia.

What was so lovely about it, I think, is that it recognizes that to win an election you've got to get three things right, at least. You’ve got to get good candidates right. You’ve got to have those fantastic local candidates who are connected to their communities and can convince their communities that we have what is needed to make their lives better. We need the great campaigners, the people, and Linda talked about this because she's one of them and has done this so many times in the past, the great campaigns who can get out and support our great candidates. And then we need the cavalry. We need the cavalry. We need the people who are able to get out there on the booths and support, knock on doors, get on phones, and do all that hard work that has to be done to convince the community that the Liberal Party can solve the problems they have, and most importantly, can help them to realise their aspirations.

So well done. Thank you for giving me the opportunity of being here today. Onwards and upwards and I'll tell you what, Premier and Prime Minister, watch out, we're coming after you!

ENDS