That's the kind of rhetoric Labor senator Kristina Keneally says needs to be removed from the political discussion.

Ms Keneally was in Port Macquarie on Thursday, April 11, to support Labor candidate for Cowper Andrew Woodward.

On the day the federal election was confirmed, the senator said the current rhetoric within the Australian political scene is tearing away the threads that keep our community together.

"Labor has just announced its electric car targets sales of 50 per cent of new vehicles by 2030," she said.

"Yet the Morrison government came out and slammed Labor's plan, saying that we will end 4WD use and the weekend road trip.

"In February this year, Scott Morrison and (treasurer) Josh Frydenberg announced exactly the same policy, the same targets.

"The fact that this type of rhetoric is taking hold in our political conversation does concern me.

"What we need to do, all parties need to do, is to make clear where we stand on community standards.

"That something like free speech does not mean it is a free for all.

"Free speech also comes with the responsibility to uphold democratic principles of equality, of fairness and respect and of tolerance," she said.

Senator Keneally said fairness was something that we used to celebrate in Australia.

She described it as a "deeply Australian notion that everyone gets a fair go and everyone has a right to practice their religion, and that everyone that comes to this country contributes something".

"It is our diversity that makes us strong," she added.

Senator Keneally pointed to the extreme views of senators Fraser Anning and Pauline Hanson for their promotion of "divisive hate speech in their rhetoric".

She says it will be incumbent on the next parliament to stand across the political divide to say that that type of language is not who we are as Australians.

"We are the most multi-cultural country in the world," she added.

Mr Woodward said hate speech is not free speech. "It needs to be called out," he said.

With both major political parties watching former traditional voters drift to independent or small parties, Senator Keneally says Labor is in the best position to capture these disenchanted voters.

"To be a successful political party who can no longer rely on children voting like their parents," she said.

"(A party) has to demonstrate that you have a plan and that you will put that plan into place. That is so important.

"You have to have policies that make sense and people can recognise their needs within those policies.

"You have to keep faith with the electorate."

She said the Coalition government represented chaos, division and the preservation of tax cuts for the rich.

"People need a government that is focused on them.

"That is what the Labor Party has kept in mind with our fair go action plan," she said.

Senator Keneally also threw her support behind the formation of a strong national integrity body.

She said, if elected, a Labor government's first item to the integrity body would be the so-called Helloworld travel scandal.

"Trust needs to be restored," she said.

Senator Keneally said she wanted to see a country that is more equal, where people can make a living wage and get health care when and where they need it.

"Labor is united, steady and ready to go," she said.

"We are a well resourced country, we are clever and we are capable of being so much better than what we are.

"And we have a strong candidate (in Cowper) with Andrew Woodward," she added.

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