Australian Labor Party launches 2013 election campaign

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) officially launched its 2013 election campaign in Brisbane, Queensland, on Sunday. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has urged voters to choose the ALP on Sept. 7 election to save their jobs and protect family budgets. "I believe we can prevail and I believe in the end we will prevail," Kevin Rudd confirmed in his home city's convention center. "For generations we have had the audacity to believe that through the agency of parliament and government we can always build a better Australia than the one we inherited from our forebears." On Sunday's launching ceremony, he unveiled a jobs agenda including tax breaks for small business, extra help for apprentices to buy tools and a new agency to bring employment services and training together. In addition, Kevin Rudd confirmed that Labor has made mistakes. "Whereas we, for all our faults, are always having a go at building a better Australia. Yes, that means we don't always get it right. Yes, that means we have made mistakes," he said. According to his speech, to help manage the next economic transition, if re-elected, Labor would give small business a cash flow boost from next weekend, through an upfront tax deduction when they buy new equipment worth up to 10,000 AU dollars (almost 8,893 U.S. dollars), bringing this and other recently announced measures to more than 5.4 billion AU dollars (almost 4.8 billion U. S. dollars).