SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER THE RT. HON.
R. G. MENZIES AT THE COMM~ lvONWEA~ LTH PARLIAMENTARY
CONFERENCE CANBERRA, THURSDAY, 29TH
OCT6BER3 1,959
Your Grace, my Lords, Your IZxcellencies, Ladies and
Gentlemen: My task is a very pleasant one and, you will be
relieved to know, a very short one. My task is to propose the
health of our visitors, and in doing so I will be supported by
Dr. Evatt, representing the Opposition. That simple statement
perhaps explains almost all that has to be explained about the
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and about this gathering.
qe are speaking now as Australians, completely bipartisan
on this occasion, We have no differences when we
deal with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and its
delegates. I have looked round the room and I have seen staunch
supporters of mine, hardened tories like myself sitting cheek
by jowl with gentlemen. of advanced ideas from Lhe Opposition,
giving every possible appearance of being friendly, as indeed
they are. That, after all, is the great secret of parliamentary
life, and that is perhaps he greatest thing to be learned about
S parliamentaSor y tlhiafte , i isnt hea llf ircsotu ntcroimemse nto ldt haotr nIe ww, anted to make
that there is something superbly bi-partisan, if I may use that
term or non-party, to use a better one, perhaps, about our
meetng. The second thing that has been very much in my mind
and I am not going to say all that I have in my mind is that I
have been instructed that this is only the first of three
speeches I shall make to precisely the same audienice on precisely
the same topics. So, naturally, I must keep something in
reserve. So the second thing, and the last thing, I want to say
on this particular occasion, which is a pipe-opener is just to
ask one question. This is the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
What is there that makes us an association? What
is it that makes us all feel that we have so-me profoundly great
element in common, with all our differences? Some of the oldfo
ideas are no longer valid for that purpose, Take the Crown, fo
example and its relationship to the people of Australia. We
are Her Majesty's subjects, externally and internally. There
are other big countries representeO. in the Co-q-. or-' A t h Parlia-
S mentary Association who recognise Her Majesty as the Head of the
Commonwealth but to whom the Queen is not internally the same
constant presence. So there is a difference.
There are differences in our law. We all hope and
struggle to have the purest of legal administrat~ bn. But every
time I begin to persuade myself, with all the natural arrogance
of a common lawyer that the Common Law is the secret, I encounter
somebody from South Africa who, I find, is a stranger to the
Common Law and all messed up with Roman Law, Therefore, I
cannot have that as an element of unity.
Really, the more you think about it, the :. jreat thing
we have in canmon is that we are all Par] liament men and women.
v! e know about Parliament, we live in a parliamentary system, We
are all of us, or practically all of us, members of some parliament
or another, all of them, interestingly enough, modelled on
the great model of Westminster, all of them with departures and
modifications which depend on local history and local characteristics
or the inexorable march of events. But underneath it all
we are parliament men. This is our great link,
I know of no other body or association in the w'orld in
which everybody participating can say: " I am a. man or woman
of Parliament. I believe in Parliament. I am part of Parliament,
and Parliament is part of This is a unique body,
2.
and that is a unique link.
Therefore, we in Australia who practise our politics,
as Winston Churchill once said, writh a fine Eighteenth Century
vigour, are delighted to meet peopleiall of them people of
Parliament, some of whom practise politics with more vigour
than we do some of w'hom have achieved that state of Nirvana in
which cour~ esy prevails always, which we can only envy.
Before I propose the toast " Our Guests" I am going to
invite my distinguished opponent, the Leader of the Opposition,
my bi-partisan friend for this occasion, Dr. Evatt, to support
me.