EMBARGO: 7. 15 p. m. on 20 October RADIO TALK NO. 4
1969 FEDERAL ELECTION
TALK GIVEN BY THE PRIME MINISTER,
MR. JOHN GORTON, OVER ABC NETWORK
ON MONDAY 20 OCTOBER
Good evening. What do you see as the needs of Australia
in the years ahead? What do you see of the opportunities for Australia
in the exciting 1970' s we are just entering? How do you believe we
can make the most of these opportunities and satisfy these needs? I
see it this way. I believe that if we are to grow at the rate that history
demands, if we are to continue the development towards greatness
which we have so much advanced in the last twenty years, then we
will need in these years a continuing inflow of development capital
from abroad. This is so that our iron ore can be mined, our nickel
can be used, our oil can be used instead of importing oil, our factories
can be improved, our industrial muscles can be strengthened and
more and more employment and more secure employment can be
provided. Of course we want to participate with Australian capital
in this development, but in the years ahead we will not be able to
save from our own resources as much as is required for the ? ace of
development that history demands that Australia should have. So the
first need, I believe, is for this continuing development anid that will
depend on a continuing development capital coming to Australia.
Side by side with that need, and not to be put second
to it, is the need Australia has for more people, for greater
population, for more and more migrants coming to Australia, for
more and more Australians being born and growing up and working
for their nation. My Government has brought in record numbers of
migrants in this past year, but in the 1970' s we will need more and
more and more if the development and the employment and the
prosperity we now enjoy are to grow as they can with the opportunities
now facing us. / 2
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Both this development capital and the inflow of
population will be threatened should inflation strike this country.
If, as our Opposition suggests, hundreds of millicns of dollars
should be thrown into the economy when there is not manpower to
match it, when there are not resources to match it, then there will
be little new built, and what is built will cost more. And there will
be burdens placed on the fixed income earner, on the pensioner,
on the primary producer and that being so, there will be a diminution
of the growth and of the prosperity we now enjoy.
The real growth of Australia depends on a properlymanaged
economy, and it is a properly-managed economy which
these false and worthless Labor promises now threaten to damage.
For if you accept these propositions, then what will happen will be
that there will be a paper printing press, turning out worthless money
to meet such worthless promises.
But it is not only the development and the growth. It
is not only the increasing population Australia needs. We will need,
too, in these years ahead, strong friends. While we continue to look
after ourselves, while we continue to improve our own defence, we
will still need strong friends. We will not get them by reneging on
our alliances with the United States, by walking out of Malaysia/
Singapore, by niggling about joint defence bases in Australia, by
slapping our allies in the face and cutting our own security.
These are the needs of Australia in the 1970' s. They
can only be met by a Liberal Government. Don't be misled by
promises which can't be kept and which can be broken on the dictates
of an outside body.