Quotes By Patricia Hewitt

A modern health and social care system has to be completely focussed on the needs of its users.

You've got to respond to that and of course thinking through the role of a left party in the modern world, in the modern economy and society and having a policy response to that.

We just have to be crystal clear that if we were to abandon all the reforms made over some very painful years in the Labour party, we would be consigned back to opposition.

I think he was absolutely right not to go to UN last week... First things first - that is, values and people here in their local communities, and remembering all politics is local, and trusting people more.

So there clearly is a sense in which the Labour Party here, certainly at State level is reaching out and connecting with people and reflecting the aspirations and needs of, you know the mass of ordinary Australians.

As patients and consumers, we are better informed today about our health care than any previous generation.

I have very real concerns about the civil liberties implications of ultimately requiring every resident to submit themselves for compulsory fingerprinting or some other biometric test.

We're seeing quite a lot of people who really would like a return to class-based politics.

Certainly we know from our own experience how very difficult it is when you've lost an election that perhaps a lot of people were expecting you to win.

But getting your party structure right may also be a precondition for getting your policies right.

You don't repair that relationship by sitting down and talking about trust or making promises. Actually, what rebuilds it is living it and doing things differently - and I think that is what is going to make the difference.

The 2 million people who work in the NHS and social care are also themselves patients and users. I know they all want to treat patients and users the way they and their families would want to be treated and that is the purpose of our reforms.

And it seems to me in that experience may lie at least some of the clues for policy development perhaps constitutional changes as well that Labour will need to make at the national level too.

And some of what we're doing in Government even now, some of the welfare reform programs that are helping lone mothers come into work are based on things that were very new under the Labour Government in the eighties.

And I hope very much that the ALP will become increasingly engaged in the international discussions that are taking place amongst centre-left parties generally.

Well I think all I would say on that is, when we were in opposition in Britain and Hawke and then Keating were in power here, Labor was in power here, we learnt a huge amount from the ALP's experience here.

People are not perfect... very often the relationships that are strongest are those where people have worked through big crises, but they've had to work through them. So the challenge to us is to work through that.

But clearly at the same time you've got to get out there and connect with voters and actually respond to the needs, the frustrations, whatever problems their now saying are not being adequately solved.

The accusation that we've lost our soul resonates with a very modern concern about authenticity.