PUBLIC MEETING,_ KOOYONG BY-ELECTION
KEW TOWN HALL, MELBOURNE 28TH MARCH 1966
Speech by the Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Holt
I have heard a lot of people here tonight calling
out " Let's have a referendum" but you know they are the same
people who won't even let us have a meeting. There is not
much point in having a referendum if we can't have a meeting.
My purpose here tonight and I won't, of course, be
deterred from it by the noise of those who come here to break
up a meeting is to speak in support of our Liberal
candidate, Andrew Peacock, who has been selected by the
Liberal Party to succeed a very great Australian who represented
this electorate with great distinction for more than thirty
years. Kooyong has a reputation for returning to the Federal
Parliament very great men. You gave us Sir John Latham, who
proved to be one of the outstanding figures in the history of
our Federation. And then followed Sir Robert Menzies who
established an all-time record term of office as Prime Minister
of this coantry. And so when it came to find a worthy
successor to Sir Robert Menzies, the people of Kooyong, in a
democratic ballot, selected from those who were offering a
young man who had already established his political wisdom and
capacity to a point where at a comparatively early age he had
been selected as the State President of the Liberal Party in
Victoria. Now a young man who enjoys the confidence of his
fellow citizens and members of the same party sufficiently to
be selected as their State leader in what has been a stronghold
of Liberalism in Australia is a young man quite clearly who
possesses exceptional political qualities, and that is the
candidate that we are offering from the Liberal Party to the
electors of Kooyong on this occasion.
Now tonight, ladies and gentlemen and I am speaking
now not only to those of you in this hall but the many thousands
of you who are listening to the broadcast of tonight's
proce. edings the issue in this campaign is not whether you
have a change of government; this is a by-election but this
by-election provides not merely the opportunity to return a
very able man to the national Parliament but it does provide
an opportunity for an Australian electorate to offer a view on
what is clearly the most outstanding public issue of this time.
And the public issue can be divided into two parts for tonight's
purposes. One is whether Australia should or should not be in
South Viet Nam with troops, and a considerable section of
this audience, not all of whom I suspect come from Kooyong,
has indicated very clearly that they think Australia should
not be in South Viet Nam, and in adopting that view they are,
of course, echoing the view of the Australian Labor Party and
its Parliamentary representatives in Canberra. Well at least
then, we have that much established. Those who are making
the noise are supporters of the Australian Labor Party and they
oppose our being in Viet Nam.
on the other hand, the other three parties
represented in the National Parliament the Liberal Party,
the Country Party and the Democratic Labor Party, all
believe that Australia should be represented in South
Viet Nam and should be engaged in assisting the communist
aggression which threatens the people of that country.
So here tonight we have a number of people, supporters of the
Labor Party, the one party represented in the National
Parliament which is opposed to Australia's participation in
South Viet Nam. Of course there is one party outside the
National Parliament, and I suspect that that party is well
represented here tonight also; that, of course, is the
Communist Party. It too believes that we should not be in
South Viet Nam.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, here is a national
line-up. Three political parties saying Australia should
be fighting communist aggression in South Viet Nam, and two
parties the Australian Labor Party and the Communist Party
saying that Australia should keep out of South Viet Nam.
All right, if that is one of the great national issues on
which the Labor Party wants to fight an election, then this
government accepts that challenge quite gladly.
Somebody says " What about a referendum?". Of
course this wasn't Mr. Calwell's story when we passed the
legislation. At the time when we passed the legislation on
National Service, the Labor Party then said that the forthcoming
Senate election was going to be the testing election of the
Government's policy on National Service, and that election
was held in 1964, and in only one State did the Labor Party
secure a majority of the votes on that occasion. And so,
having fought the Senate election of 1964 on this particular
issue, the Labor Party refuses to accept the verdict given
at that time. Well, then, let that be the case. For our
part, we welcome the fact that this campaign provides yet
another opportunity to examine I would have hoped to
examine calmly and carefully the issues which are involved
in this campaign, but unfortunately there are some who have
come here tonight determined to prevent a clear and coherent
account being given of what is involved. However, thanks
to these mechanical aids to good sense and to good government,
I shall be able to speak to many people outside this hall who
will only be affected to a minor degree by the species of
entertainment which have been provided around various sections
of this audience. Now Sir, Mr. Chairman, the reason why Australia is
represented in South Viet Nam is first because we and our
allies have resisted communist aggression wherever we have
found it. We resisted it in Berlin. we resisted it in the
threat from Cuba. We resisted it in Korea. We saved Taiwan
from being overrun by Chinese communists. And we have
resisted it now in South Viet Nam. We know fully well that
if Chinese communism succeeds in South Viet Nam, then Chinese
communism will spread unchecked through the mainland of
South East Asia and we can surrender the whole of this vital
area of the world to communist overlordship.
3.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, this issue has been
clear enough to the Australian people f or a very long time
and they have given the Government staunch support in the
action which it has taken. The Government does not take
its action as if somehow the members of the Cabinet lived
in a vacuum. We act, not only on the soundest military
advice we can secure, we act on the advice and the
information reaching us from a wide variety of sources, from
our own diplomatic sources, from the governments of other
countries, from thB Defence Committee which includes in its
membership not merely the Chiefs of Staff but which includes
in its membership I am afraid this lady is behaving in a
very unladylike fashion. It is not often that a lady
intrudes where she hasn't been invited. I hope that nobody
tries to treat her with other than sympathy for obviously
there is a quite imperfect knowledge of the issues involv-2d
for this country and the action which should be taken
regarding them.
Now, I am not surprised that here ton ht in what
we are assured by the Labor Party is a democracy and of
course they may well believe that to be so, because when
Mr. Calwell spoke in this campaign, he wgas given a very
attentive hearing. May I repeat that When Mr. Calwell
spoke in this campaign, he was given a very attentive hearing.
I wonder why his supporters deny to the candidate here
tonight, Andrew Peacock, and to myself a reasonable opportunity
to put the Government's case. I mean, what are they afraid
of? Can't they stand up to the facts? Aren't they
prepared to hear the case which the Government is quite able
to give, convincingly enough, I think, even to shake those
who have come here with the most rigid Labor support in their
minds. And I want them to give me just this opportunity.
I heard one or two calling out " All the way with LBJ". Yes,
there he is. " All the way with LBJ".
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I would think it was
well known to the meanest intelligence that Australia, a
country of less than 12 million people, inhabiting a continent
the size of the United States, could not hope to defend
itself against aggression entirely from its own resources.
That should be quite obvious I should think to the meanest
intelligence. And the action which contributed most to the,
security of the Australian people was the action of the Menzies
Government in negotiating the ANZUS Treaty and the South East
Asian Treaty. These two treaties contribute more to
Australia' s security than anything else that could be named.
These treaties assure us that should we be attacked by an
aggressor we can look to powerful allies to bring us the
strength of their support in resisting that aggression.
Now, once this fact has been grasped, and I hope that you are
able to grasp it quite firmly, then the Labor platform
becomes all the more significant and I am going to read to
you for a moment the Labor Party platform on defence. I
wonder whether our noisy friends will at least allow me to
tell this audience the Labor Party platform on defence. Well
let me read it to you. Now allow me please.
4.
This is taken from the official printed platform
of the Australian Labor Party under the heading of Defence
" Australia's national policy must be to ensure her
territorial security, the security of her overseas
trade and her development as an independent but
co-operative nation. The nation's defence must
be so arranged that the intention of Australia to
defend itself to the limits of its ability is clear
beyond all doubt to our own people, to our allies
and to any potential aggressor. The development
by negotiation of a regional defence system of
United Nations Member States within the South East
Asian and Indian sub-continental areas for mutual
defence consistent with the requirements of the
United Nations Charter and not inconsistent with
the general provisions of Australia' s existing
defence treaty commitments. Labor's defence and
foreign policies are based on the conviction that
war can and must be prevented and Australia has a
part to play in its prevention. Australia demands
the right to consultation in the great decisions
of peace and war."
Now this is the final sentence and I want you to listen to
this final sentence
" Labor will honour and support Australia's treaties
and defence alliances."
Now that is a very now wait a minute. That is a
very important sentence, but the significant thing is that
that sentence appears in the platform of the Labor Party
for 1963 and 1964, but it has been dropped from the platform
of the Labor Party in 1965, and I say, Sir, that this
Australian Labor Party under its present leadership has no
intention of honouring Australia's treaties and alliances
with those with whom it has engaged This provision
that I have referred to was deliberately dropped from the
platform of the Australian Labor Party and I suggest to
Mr. Calwell and to Mr. Whitlan, his doubtful deputy, I suggest
to Mr. Calwell and to Mr. Whitlam that they occupy the
remainder of this by-election campaign explaining to the
Australian people why the Labor Party has dropped from its
platform the sentence which says " Labor will honour and
support Australia's treaties and defence alliances"
Now, ladies and gentlemen, if this by-election has
done nothing else it has at least brought out into the open
that the Australian Labor Party, without any flourish of
trumpets and without the Australian public being fully aware
of this matter until it has appeared in this rather obscure
way, the Australian Labor Party has dropped from its platform
its undertaking to honour and support Australia's treaties and
defence alliances. All right, we now know where the Labor
Party stands on South Viet Nam. They don't stand with the
United States and the Allies and the South Vietnamese and they
don't stand by the treaties and alliances which we, for
Australia's protection, have freely entered into.
4. ( a)
Now let me move to the next point. The next point
that I want to deal with is why did we find it necessary to
introduce a National Service scheme. As is well known,
the Australian Government decided some years ago that
Australia should establish and maintain a well-equipped,
highly mobile Regular Army, Navy and Air Force. And over
recent years we have increased the strength of the Navy,
the Air Force and the Army. In 1964, after a period in
which Indonesia had embarked on a policy of confrontation
against Malaysia, a country to which Australia had given
an undertaking to assist in its defence, and at a time when
Communist pressures were increasing in South Viet Nam, in
Laos, in Cambodia, in Thailand, in other parts of South
East Asia, the Government decided that Australia should
increase our Regular Army components. Now at that time the
target was 22,500 men, and a decision was taken to build
this total up to 37,500. S.
Now, Sir, at that time we were engaging on an active
campaign of advertising for volunteers. We were offering
improved conditions and terms of service, and no one can
seriously argue that the conditions and terms of service are
unfavourable or unattractive because the fact of the matter
is that Army men who come to the end of their period of
service are re-engaging at what is a very high percentage rate.
The figure at the moment is higher, the percentage of reengagement
is actually higher in the Army than it is in the
Air Force or the Navy. It is a percentage of 70, and 700%
of re-engagement is one of the highest figures in the history
of the Australian Army. And so this defeats any argument
that there are not sufficiently attractive pay and conditions
offering for the Regular Army.
So you look for the reason elsewhere and the reason
why we are not getting all the volunteers that we require is
to be found in two directions. The first is that in a fully
employed society, with plenty of opportunities offering for
our young men, in a country that doesn't have a military
tradition, you don't have a great number of young men offering
for an Army career, and the number offering over the last
three years has been in the neighbourhood of 8,500 young men.
But the Army if it is maintaining a small Regular Army has to
have a highly efficient Army, a very fit Army, a well-trained
Army, and people who can measure up to the demands of the
various and varied diverse circumstances that a mobile Army
group will have to meet in various parts of South East Asia.
And so we found in practice that out of some 8,500 volunteers
less than 2,500 were regarded as measuring up to the standard
which the Army required. Now this operated right through
the three years leading up to the changeover to National
Service and when the decision was and it was
a decision taken against a background of the highest advice
we could secure, the strategic advice of our own Defence
Committee, the Defence Committee consisting of the Chiefs of
Staff of the three Services, the Chairman of the Chiefs of
Staff Committee, the Permanent Head of the Prime Minister's
Department, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Permanent
Head of the Department of External Affairs. Now these people
are the top advisers that the Government can secure and based
on their strategic view of the worsening circumstances and
situation in South East Asia they recommended a substantial
increase in the Armed Services and the equipment available
to the Armed Services.
The Chief of Staff of the Army pointed ( obt to us
that if we wished to increase our troops from 22,500 to 37,500
then the voluntary system would give us merely an additional
750 people a year, and quite obviously we wouldn't build up
to the desired target on the basis of 750 people a year.
And it was at this point, Mr. Chairman, that a Government
which has the responsibility for the national security of the
Australian people decided that a system of National Service
was essential in the interests of our people.
Sir, could any party, has any political party in
the history of Australia been humiliated and treated with
such contempt as the Australian Labor Party's Federal
Parliamentary Party was by the Federal Executive of that
Party. Never in the history of the Australian people has
a political party been treated with such contempt and been
publicly humiliated in the way that the Federal Parliamentary party
of the A. L. P. has over these recent months and this, Sir, is
the Party that says to the people of Kooyong in this campaign
elect us, put the Government out and put us in, put in a
Party that has no defence policy, that has no foreign policy,
that goes along with the noisier members of this audience in
attacking Australia's alliance with the United States. These,
Sir, are the people that ask the Australian Government and
people to allow them to govern the Australia of today. Sir,
there cannot be any doubt as to where Australians come out on
this particular issue.
Now you have a chance to show your support for a
splendid candidate who will represent Kooyong ably and for long
in the years ahead. I would have liked tonight, ladies and
gentlemen, to have given you the positive side of the
Government's programme in the domestic field. I would very
much have liked to have had the opportunity to tell you of the
positive side to the campaign in South Viet Nam because, as
President Johnson pointed out in Honolulu when he met the
courageous leader of the South Vietnamese people, we are
determined that out of the struggle in South Viet Nam will
come a reconstruction, a rehabilitation, a new economic and
social order which will be a model and example to other
countries in South East Asia. Now, Sir, this becomes possible
if Communism can be resisted. This is what has occurred in
Korea, this is what has been done in Taiwan, two countries
rescued from Communist aggression and this is what can be done
in South Viet Nam if we are able to hold in check the cancerous
scourge of Communism.
Now Communism is a cancerous scourge you either
check the cancerous scourge of Communism, you check it, you
eradicate it, or your victim goes under as it spreads its
deadly poisonous effect through the victim concerned, and this
is what has happened in so many of the enslaved countries of'
Central Europe and this, but for the strength and resolution
of the American people is what would be happening in South East
Asia today. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a significant thing that
in addition to all the countries which are giving their military
and material aid in South East Asia, three distinguished
Presidents of the United States, President Eisenhower,
President Kennedy and President Johnson all have taken the
same view of the necessity of resisting aggression in that
country and we in Australia can feel deeply grateful for the
resolution, the strength of purpose, the firmness of mind of
the President of the United States, President Johnson, for
his determination to see these issues through in South Viet Nam.
Now,. Sir, there are some 80,000 odd young men in
the 20-year age group. And the total of National Servicemen
required was some 8,400, approximately one tenth of the total
number of people who reach that particular age arnd
incidentally, it is of interest to know that in the task
force that will be going to South Viet Nam there will be
approximately 30% of the membership of that task force drawn
from the National Service component.
Now, right from the outset, it was intended that
the National Service trainee should go into a Regular Army
unit and in that army unit serve on the same pay, the same
terms and the same conditions as the Regular Army Servicemen.
But, having then gone into that Regular unit, they should go
wherever that particular Army unit was placed some will be
placed on various duties inside Australia, some will go to
Malaysia, some will go to Viet Nami. If any trouble develops
in our own Territory of Papua and New Guinea then others
would be required in Papua and New Guinea. But where assisting
the Regular Army troops, the people who represent Australia's
contribution to our own security in this part of the world,
they, Sir, will be supported by this comparatively small
component of National Servicemen.
Now, Sir, those National Servicemen are required to
serve in regular service for a period of two years, and, as
to overseas service in South Viet Nam, quite obviously just
as only a fraction of the 20-year-olds will ever be called up
for National S,:. rvice so also only a fraction of those actually
called up will be required to serve outside Australia, whether
in Viet Nam or elsewhere. The tour of duty in South Viet Nam
is one year, after which they would retuirn to Australia.
That in essence is the scheme and the reason why it was found
necessary to introduce that scheme.
Now the Labor Party has offered no alternative.
What is the alternative policy of the Labor Party? First of
all it says pull our troops out of South Viet Nam. it
dropped from its platform the clause which says it will honour
its treaties and its alliances, so it leaves Australia without
treaty assistance and it leaves Australia without the
friendship of those who would feel some obligation to us
because in their time of peril we have given them assistance
to resist the communist aggression directed against them.
Now there in essence, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue on
which the Labor Party chooses to fight this campaign. They
cloud these issues over of course with an emotional smokescreen.
They try to tell the mothers of this country that
their boys are going to be taken away for indefinite periods
of. time, that this is something which is going to apply to
the young manhood of this country. They paint the most
harrowing picture and, Sir, if I thought that the Australian
Labor Party represented the feeling of the Australian people
then I would despair for this country, but I am quite certain
that this Australian Labor Party will go down in history as
the weakest, the most irresponsible, the most unrealistic of
all the political parties which have ever carried an honourable
name in Australia.
Mr. Caiwell tells us that this is an unwinnable
war what sort of national leader when we know we have
on our side in this issue the United States of America, the
people of this country, the people of other countries who
are giving military support and the South Vietnamese
themselves who have more than 200,000 regular troops in the
armed forces of that country what manner of national
leader is it who tells the Australian people that this is an
unwinnable war. This is the man who wouldn't even support
his own Labor Leader, John Curtin, when John Curtin thought
it was necessary in the interests of Australia to call up
national Servicemen. This is the man who now comes before
you and says that he would be the leader of the Australian
people at a time when the pernicious, corroding, erosive,
influence of Communism is spreading through Europe and is
spreading through Africa and is spreading through the
countries of South East. Asia. Yes, but unfortunately
Arthur Calwell is not. This is my deep complaint.
Our friend here thinks that times are changing.
Of course they are. They have changed since the days of
the conscription of 1916/ 17. Arthur Calwell has never got
outside the atmosphere of that campaign. They have changed
since the days of the depression period of the 1930' s, when
a Labor Government couldn't cope with the economic situation
of that time. Here most of you in this room, most of those
of you screaming here tonight, have never known anything but
full employment thanks to this Government. No government
in the history of Australia has ever kept its people employed,
fully employed, in the way this Government has done. No
country in the history of Australia has given the standard
of living that this country has done. In Labor's last year
of office they provided œ 9014-$ 18014-for social welfare.
That was Labor. We, Sir, in our last Budget, provided
$ 940M4 against $ 180M4 for Labor we provided $ 940M, so this
Government has built the economy of Australia so that we
can support a considerable defence effort, we can support
the most rapid rate of development in the history of this
nation and we can support the highest level of social welfare
that this country has ever known.
Why is it that around the world Oh, I
know, they don't want to hear this, they don't want to hear
it, of course they don't want to hear it but they cannot deny
that these are the facts and these are the facts that Mr.
Calwell and his parliamentary colleagues are not prepared to
stand up to. This is why, although there are many issues
on which this campaign in Kooyong should be fought, they want
the smoke-screen of the one issue. They won't fight the
election in Kooyong over the broad fields of government.
policies they want to concentrate on the one item of policy
and they organise this kind of undemocratic demonstration,
this kind of demonstration worthy of the totalitarian countries
for which their sympathies have been so plainly evidenced.
Sir, does Mr. Calwell who was given an uninterrupted
and attentive hearing in the meeting he opened in this
camnpaign, does Mr. Calwell and that notable democrat, Mr.
Whitlam, the dagger man, does he believe that this is the
way in which Labor supporters should show how a political
meeting should be conducted. I am quite certain that those
who came here to disrupt this meeting have gained many
supporters for the Liberal cause. If there were any doubters
in this audience tonight as to how their vote should be cast,
then after tonight's performance there will be no doubt that
they will be voting for a government that can maintain order
at home and order abroad. They are not going to hand this
country over to the rabble supporters of a rabble government.
The Labor Party in Canberra today is a rabble party can
anyone who has witnessed the events in the last few months
describe it as other than a rabble party desperately trying
to find a leader that they can support with any species of
loyalty. They cannot support Caiwell they don't believe
he is the man for leader, they cannot support Whitlam because
they don't think he is a man that they can trust, and they
cannot find a candidate inside the Labor Parliamentary Party
that they are prepared to back for their leadership. And
so a rabble party which offers Australia a rabble government
turns to its rabble supporters and says go out and wreck the
meeting of the one government that can conduct Australia to
security and prosperity in these difficult times.
So ladies and gentlemen, I think most of us tonight
have got the essence of the message that we have been trying
to get over to you. You don't have to hear from Andrew
Peacock because you know that this young man has shown the
qualities of character, of intelligence and of leadership
which at this age have brought him to the election in the
position of President of the State Division of the Liberal
Party of Australia, and this young man in a first class field
of candidates which offered themselves for the s~ ection for
this notable seat he had the handsome votes which brought him
here as your candidate tonight.
Now Kooyong has been notable for its illustrious
representation and I am quite certain that following Sir John
Latham, Sir Robert Menzies and the men who preceded them will
be a splendid candidate who enjoys the support of a most
charming, gracious and attractive young wife. These young
people will not only be an ornament for the electors of Kooyong
but they will be assets of great value to the National
Parliament in Canberra. I wish, Andrew, continuing success
to you in the years ahead. I know that you will be a welcome
addition to our ranks in Canberra. You are typical of the
young vigorous, able and intelligent young men and women who
are rallying in their thousands today to the Australian people.
And not only are the young people rallying to us, but tbe,
trade anionists of this country are rallying to us in increasing
numbers. The Labor Party used to claim to represent the trade
unionists of this country but, Sir, we would not be in office
here today unless hundreds of thousands of men and women in
the trade unions of this country voted for us regularly,
election after election.
And this party, this Liberal Party, this great
national party, can claim to be truly representative of all
sections of the Australian people. We are not a class conscious
party envisaged by the memories of long ago struggles which
seem to have poisoned the minds of Mr. Calwell and so many
of his supporters. This is a young party with a young
outlook for the great future of a great country and it is
with the help of able young men of courage and character
like Andrew Peacock that we shall build a great Australia to
which the Liberal Party will have made a notable contribution
of leadership and wise political guidance and policy
development. Ladies and gentlemen, give this young man, this
very able and very courageous young man, a flying start on
a long and notable political career by a bumper vote not
merely victory, we know he is going to win but give him a
vote of which he and we and all of us can be proud when he
comes to the poll in the next week.