"Chile is all of us, and we must all dream it, shape it and build it together"; President Piñera’s first speech at La Moneda Palace.

The President’s complete speech follows:

“Good evening, and thank you for being here with us on this very special and emotional day.

My fellow Chileans:

Following the presidential inauguration in Congress, and lunch at Cerro Castillo with the Presidents and Heads of State of the friendly nations who visited us, we wanted my first act as President of all Chileans to be a proposal that all of us in Chile make a commitment to a Great National Agreement for our children and their childhood.

I also recall that 8 years ago, my first act as president-in-office was to visit and talk with the families who had been affected by the earthquake of February 27, 2010 and its strong aftershocks, some of which happened on the very same day of the presidential inauguration ceremony, and whose epicenter was in the O'Higgins Region.

That was the year that I arrived here, to this, the home of all Chileans and its presidents, moved by the painful loss of lives caused by the earthquake and tsunami of February 27, and struck by the terrible destruction that I could see.

Yet I was also strengthened and inspired by the amazing spirit and courage shown by my fellow Chileans, who, despite their sorrow, managed to once again wipe away their tears, roll up their sleeves and confront adversity together.

That night we reaffirmed our unwavering commitment to rebuild our country on more solid foundations, house by house, school by school, hospital by hospital. And with the contribution and generosity of all Chileans, we were able to accomplish that mission.

Today we have returned to this house of all Chileans, once again armed with determination and the urgent need to carry out our mission of justice, bent on improving the dignity and quality of life of all our children - most particularly those who have only known loneliness and neglect in their short lives.

Not only because they are the future of our families and our country, but also because a great, just and united nation cannot fail any of its children without failing itself, without diminishing its own soul, without compromising its own future.

Today I call on all my fellow Chileans to be a vital part of this great national agreement for children and childhood, to give back to our children, to the most vulnerable, what the State and society have taken away from them: their childhood, their innocence and their joy of living. So that all our children may develop their God-given talents, and be guaranteed a life full of dignity in which they can go as far as their dreams and their own resolve will take them.

My fellow Chileans:

Father Hurtado, the great Chilean saint, said that our country is much more than our mountain ranges, our valleys or our sea. He said that our country was a mission that needed to be accomplished.

And today I would like to invite all Chileans of goodwill to take their place, to make their contribution and also to receive the just benefits of achieving this mission; to dream, to shape and build a freer, fairer, more prosperous and more caring country. A country where each and every one of us has the opportunity to develop our own talents, the security to enjoy life with dignity and the freedom to pursue our own paths and seek our own happiness.

Almost 30 years ago, with unity, faith and hope, we Chileans successfully made the first transition towards becoming a society with freedom and democracy. But this transition, admired the world over, is now in the past and submerged in the pages of history.

That is why Chileans today, with the same faith, unity and hope, have to embark on a new transition, one that will lead us towards a developed Chile, free from poverty, towards a Chile with opportunities for all.

Someday, and mark my words, our children and grandchildren will judge us by the way we faced the challenge of this new transition, the challenge of transforming Chile into a developed country free from poverty. And on that day we will need to respond to them, to our children. It is them whom we cannot fail.

Today we inaugurate our Government, one that will always seek unity among Chileans, replacing the misguided logic of bulldozing what has gone before with a sound culture of dialogue, agreements and collaboration among the people of Chile.

We are also committed to being a Government focused on progress and solidarity. Our goal and mission is large and ambitious but it is also noble and feasible: to transform Chile, historically Spain's poorest colony in Latin America, into the first –and hopefully not the only – country in Latin America that can proudly claim to have defeated underdevelopment, overcome poverty and learned to live peacefully and in freedom.

I would like to reiterate to you the commitment we made during our campaign: the priorities of our government will be the priorities of all Chileans. We will devote all our energy, efforts and skills to accomplishing certain essential goals.

Decreasing crime, drug trafficking and terrorism, to ensure that the safety of our families, the integrity of our young people and peace in our regions.

Protecting our citizens is key for our people to truly develop their life projects.

That is why we will never let fear invade our hearts and minds, our homes, let alone our lives, because it would maim our freedom and impoverish our future.

To accomplish this great task, we will profoundly modernize our police forces and intelligence system; we will improve the coordination among the police, prosecutors and judges; and we will strengthen our capacity to rehabilitate those who have gone astray.

To achieve this, we need the support and collaboration not only of the municipalities, but also of citizens. There cannot be police officers on every street corner, but there can be honest citizens who will help Chile fight back against crime and allow security to thrive.

We will also address the serious crisis affecting our health system, which we all know requires major surgery. We need reduced waiting times and waiting lists, lower prices for medications, more specialists and better quality and dignity for our people when they are in need of healthcare.

Over the last few decades, the Chilean middle class has made impressive progress, and has done so on the back of its own efforts, talent and merit. They know this, and they are very proud of what they have achieved. But they also want to keep moving forward and want greater security against life-changing events, such as losing their jobs, serious illness, crime, the cost of their children's higher education or an extended old age. Any of these events could reduce them to the difficult circumstances they left behind and hoped never to experience again.

The Protected Middle Class Network (Red de Clase Media Protegida) Program goes to the heart of what our middle class want: more opportunities for progress, and also the confidence that if adversity or an accident should strike them at any time in their lives, they will not be alone or abandoned, but instead a sympathetic hand will help them to get back on their feet and walk again.

That is the deeper meaning of the Protected Middle Class Network Program: to help our middle class, without ever taking away their power over their own lives, nor the freedom to make their own decisions.

We also know that in modern society, the knowledge and information society, the quality of our education is our greatest challenge, and one that will either make or break both individuals and entire nations.

In these modern times, our government will make every effort to ensure not only access to education at all levels for all our children, but also that this education will be of high quality. We will strive to make sure that when they graduate, they will find jobs worthy of their effort, rather than continuing to produce professionals who end up being well-educated but unemployed. This battle must be waged and won inside our classrooms.

We are also firmly committed, and this I stress to you all, to improving the pensions of each and every Chilean. Let me make it very clear: we will make faster and more intensive progress to improve the pensions of our women, of the most vulnerable sectors and of our great middle class.

Octavio Paz, the great Mexican thinker and Nobel Prize winner, whenever referring to the State, always talked about a "Philanthropic Ogre". Philanthropic, because the State is supposed to help people; and an ogre, because for many citizens the State is distant, detached and hostile.

To change that image into one that is friendlier and more humane, we need to bring the government closer to the people. We must strengthen our regions and our municipalities. That is why I am committed to transferring more powers, responsibilities and resources to regional and local governments. But I want you to know that we are going to demand better management, greater transparency and more active participation from the citizens and neighbors of our regions and municipalities.

Also – and the women of our country know this better than anyone else – the State must be thrifty and carefully manage the resources you finance by paying taxes. We will strive to prevent the State from being held hostage by bureaucracy, corruption and political operators.

My father was a public servant all his life, and I would like to say this to all public servants: I have the greatest appreciation and recognition for the work that you do. Yet I would also like to tell political operators that they are distorting the true meaning of the political role, and that is neither compatible nor acceptable in a democracy bent on serving its people.

We must reclaim the State so that it can be at the service of the Chilean people. And this is going to require a very, very important task: the modernization of our State, which was created in the 19th century, patched up in the 20th century and that no longer responds to the needs of the Chileans of the 21st century.

We are going to push for a true technological revolution, so that information and knowledge technologies are at the service of citizens. And we are going to simplify the procedures and paperwork required by the State, so that people can do them from the comfort of their smartphones, their computers, their telephones or –in the worst case scenario– in offices that will serve citizens in the manner they deserve.

I would also like to express our heartfelt commitment to strengthening families, all the families that exist in our country, who give us so much joy and yet receive so little support in return.

We are going to strengthen Chilean families, seeking total equality of rights and obligations between men and women and making work and family life more compatible. We will combat domestic violence – which is normally violence against women, children and senior citizens – with all our strength and will. We are also going to support birth and maternity, because a country that does not want to have children is a country where something is amiss. Children are like the stars: they always brighten our lives and there can never be too many.

I also wish to be very realistic: in order to make progress with all these ambitious yet necessary objectives, goals and missions, we must reverse the economic stagnation of recent years. We have to regain macroeconomic and fiscal balance and, above all, we have to rejuvenate leadership, dynamism, our capacity to grow, to create good jobs, to improve salaries, to invest, to innovate, to advance in science and technology. We also need to recover our capacity for entrepreneurship, which I know - despite the bureaucracy that tends to stifle it - lives in the hearts and souls of all our fellow Chileans.

That is why growth is key, not only to creating good jobs, improving salaries and generating opportunities for the middle class, but also to providing resources for the State to finance its social programs in a healthy manner. After all, there is no better labor policy than full employment, and there is no better fiscal policy than economic growth.

Yet I would also like to tell you that development is much more than growth. True development is not just about figures, numbers or statistics. True development must have a human face, and its aim is but one: to improve the quality of life, expand the scope of freedom and create more and better opportunities for all our fellow Chileans.

True development is also concerned with the unity of our country, with quality, honesty and transparency, with our democracy and our institutions, with justice, with the support that we give to one another and the protection of nature and our environment.

My fellow Chileans:

We are all Chile, and that is why we have to dream it, shape it and build it together. And not only for ourselves, our children or grandchildren; we need to be able to ask ourselves what kind of country we will bequeath to those who will come after us. We may not know them yet, but we love them anyway and are waiting for them with open arms.

To build a country that is good, just and free, that is capable of welcoming all its children as a good mother or father, is neither the task nor the responsibility of a single President, Government or coalition. It is much more than that: it is a task that must engage, excite and summon all Chileans. It will be achieved through unity rather than division; through adding rather than subtracting; through collaborating rather than confronting; through respecting others rather than disqualifying them; and, above all, through offering a helping hand rather than a clenched fist. That is the only way to build the country we have always dreamed of.

My fellow Chileans:

I can assure you that we will all have the opportunity to contribute to the great tasks ahead of us: the government and civil society, those who supported us in the last election and those who chose other options; those who were born in Chile and those who have come to start a new life in our country; those to whom life has been kind, but especially the most vulnerable and the poorest in our country.

I can guarantee that not only will we all have our chance to contribute, but that everyone will get a fair share of the benefits that this great mission will generate.

Because Chile is all of us, because in Chile no one and nothing must be left behind, except for hatred, evil, intolerance and violence.

We should always remember a great lesson that history has taught us so many times before: whenever Chileans have become divided and treated each other as enemies instead of fellow citizens, we have suffered our saddest and most bitter defeats. Whenever we have united behind a great and noble cause, we have won our most beautiful and valuable victories.

This is why I would like to call on all my fellow Chileans today to pursue, in good will, five major agreements for the benefit of everyone in Chile:

An Agreement for Childhood;
An Agreement for Citizen Safety;

An Agreement for decent and timely healthcare;

An Agreement for peace in the Araucanía Region;

And a Great National Agreement for Chile to take a big leap forward, towards comprehensive development and overcoming poverty.

Dear men and women who live in this blessed country:

200 years ago, our founding fathers, the founding fathers of our nation, fought and consolidated our freedom and independence. They overcame obstacles and hardships, such as the bitter defeats of the Rancagua Disaster or the battle of Cancha Rayada. However, they also displayed utter glory in their triumph at Chacabuco and in the final victory that consolidated our independence in the Battle of Maipú.

Today, we – their children – would like to tell them that they will never be forgotten, and that their heroic efforts were not in vain. They left us a wonderful country, and our great mission today is to bequeath to our children, our grandchildren and those who will come after them, a freer, more just, more prosperous and more united Chile. A Chile where all its children, by the mere fact of being born in this blessed land, will know that they can develop their God-given talents, and that they will have the security of a decent life following the path of freedom to seek out their own destiny.

I would like to conclude by asking God to give us all, all Chilean men and women, the wisdom, the strength and the humility to be able to traverse these paths and fulfill our great mission.

God bless Chile and the Chilean people. Be assured that, as we said in our electoral campaign, better times are now coming, for all of you, and for all Chilean families!

Thank you for sharing this moment. Thank you very much and good night."