It's a great pleasure to join you this evening and to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Australian Women's National League (AWNL).
This gathering is particularly appropriate in a week when Liberal women have achieved yet another milestone. For the first time in Australia's history, there are now three women in the Federal Cabinet - a milestone that has been achieved without the use of patronising quotas.
The women in this room - especially from the Women's Section of the Victorian Division - are heirs to a tradition that has produced some great political warriors for the Liberal cause.
Established in 1904, the Australian Women's National League grew to become the largest and most effective women's political organisation in Australian history. It pursued a tough-minded, liberal agenda aimed at economic prosperity and freedom of thought and action. It participated in pre-selections on the non-Labor side of politics and at its peak during World War I the League registered some 500 branches with more than 50,000 members.
And of course, it played an important role in the formation of the Liberal Party. This year we also mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of our great party by Sir Robert Menzies. So it is doubly appropriate that tonight we celebrate the contribution of generations of Liberal women to our party and to the making of modern Australia.
Menzies was very conscious of the political power of the Australian Women's National League at the time he formed the Liberal Party in 1944. He was forever indebted to the League's president Elizabeth ('May') Couchman for helping to convince her colleagues to merge their organisation into the new party. And in turn, women gained a strong voice in the Liberal Party.
A TRADITION OF LIBERAL ACHIEVEMENT
In later life, Menzies would often reflect on the unique spirit of those who helped him form the Liberal Party - not least the members of the Australian Women's National League. It is worth reminding ourselves what led so many women to throw their support behind the Liberal Party in the 1940s and in later decades.
The Liberal Party was created at a time when the political winds could hardly have been more unfavourable. The momentum behind bigger, more intrusive government seemed almost unstoppable. The Great Depression and World War II left many people - including much of the intelligencia - convinced that socialism offered the only path to prosperity and happiness.
Into these headwinds came a remarkable group of Australians determined to resist Labor's collectivist social planning. And women like Elizabeth Couchman, Ivy Wedgewood and Edith Haynes were in the front rank of the new Liberal Party based on their organisational and political skills.
The founding fathers and mothers of the Liberal Party did not oppose Labor's big government agenda simply on economic grounds. They knew socialism was inefficient. But, more importantly, they were determined to resist what they saw as a dull and sterile world-view that negated the dignity and worth of the individual.
The men and women who formed the Liberal Party embodied a particular ideal of Australian society based on virtues of individual freedom, personal responsibility and social obligation. These are virtues with a timeless place in the Australian Liberal inheritance.
Menzies' great strength was his capacity to connect liberal philosophy with the experiences, concerns and ideals of people in their daily lives. In broadcasts such as 'The Forgotten People', his classic 1942 statement of Australian Liberalism, he articulated superbly the aspirations of men and women in Middle Australia for themselves, their families and their country.
Menzies also had a very clear idea of good government when he led the Liberal Party out of the political wilderness in 1949. The Menzies era is synonymous with rising living standards and expanded opportunities for the Australian people - years of full employment, low inflation, surging home ownership, increased education opportunities and large-scale immigration.
For Australians who had endured years of depression and war, it was a time of new and bigger horizons; a time when they could plan with confidence and aspire to give their children an even brighter future. In many ways, Menzies was ahead of his time in recognising the changing role of women in Australian society and in developing policies that appealed to women.
Of course, our political opponents have made it their mission to tear down the great and enduring Menzies legacy. We owe it to our past, our present and our future to reaffirm this tradition of Liberal achievement.
The growth rates achieved between 1949 and 1966 were the highest in Australia's history. Unemployment was consistently between 1 and 1.5 per cent. I well recall casting my first vote at the December 1961 federal election when the Menzies government was almost thrown out of office because unemployment reached what was then the unthinkable level of 2.6 per cent.
Australia also became one of the world's great home-owning democracies in the Menzies years. In Melbourne, for example, between 1947 and 1961 home ownership rates rose from 50 per cent to 76 per cent. For the first time, thousands of Australian workers whose traditional allegiance was to the Labor Party could afford to buy their own home.
The expansion of education was another significant part of Menzies era nation-building. The Menzies Government's decision to grant state aid to religious schools in 1963 ended 100 years of discrimination against Australian Catholics. In the process, the Liberal Party became, emphatically, a more inclusive movement.
Menzies was also the driving force behind the great post-war expansion of higher education in Australia. Based on his clear vision of the role of universities in Australian society, his government paved the way for a massive transition from elite to mass higher education. In later life Menzies continued to rate the development of Australia's university system as one of his proudest achievements, notwithstanding the counter-cultural backlash on campuses against much of his legacy.
The Menzies era was a time of economic prosperity and social stability - two things that symbolise the Liberal inheritance to Australia. But as Menzies well understood, Australian Liberalism is not a fixed ideology.
It is a broad-based political philosophy that relates a core set of enduring values to the changing realities and challenges of Australian society. And we face a continuing challenge to relate our Liberal inheritance to the hopes and aspirations of the Australian people.
THE SOCIAL DIVIDEND OF ECONOMIC STRENGTH
My government has pursued its own distinctively Australian synthesis of economic liberalism and modern conservatism. We have never lost sight of the fact that good economic management and sustained economic growth are not ends in themselves. Economic prosperity is valued for its contribution to building a stable, fair and cohesive Australian society.
Our economic prosperity and social advancement rest on many of the same requirements. Robust communities, cohesive families and responsible individuals are fundamental for building a strong economy. And without a strong economy, a caring community is much harder to achieve.
There is never a disconnect between economic policy and social policy. Good economic policy - generating growth, investment and jobs - is essential to sustaining a fair and decent society.
Let me illustrate by highlighting in turn just some of the Government's economic and social policy achievements over the last eight and a half years.
More than 1.3 million new jobs have been created since March 1996.
We are spending 60 per cent more on employment services for disabled Australians than was the case when Labor left office.
Real wages have risen by 14 per cent, while inflation has remained low and stable.
We have indexed the old-age pension to the strong growth in average male wages rather than to the lower rate of the consumer price index.
Labor's $96 billion debt has been cut by $70 billion with interest savings averaging $5.5 billion a year.
We have doubled annual spending on health from $17 billion to $35 billion over our time in office.
The number of strikes in Australia has fallen to a record low.
We have created more than 256,000 extra child-care places since 1996.
The profit share in Australia is at a record high.
We are providing record support to carers in Australia, including through a five-fold increase in carer respite services.
Again, the point is a simple one. A strong economy and a fair and decent society are bound up together. Economic prosperity is the essential prerequisite for reaching all our other goals.
You might think this proposition would be relatively uncontroversial in our policy debate. Indeed, it used to be before my political opponent Mr Latham discovered the magic of 'new politics' where you avoid serious debate on economic management and issues such as tax and industrial relations.
It's sometimes said that Mr Latham is a conviction politician. I must say I find the evidence for this proposition to be rather thin.
When he was a Labor backbencher, Mr Latham used to extol the virtues of good economics and flexible markets as vehicles for improving peoples' lives. He used to enthuse about new patterns of work, greater workplace flexibility and the demise of centralised industrial relations and big unions.
Not now. Now he wants you to believe that disciplined economic management and a flexible economy are peripheral to the concerns of ordinary Australians; that good economic policy is disconnected from what happens to Australian society.
For example, Mr Latham wrings his hands about a decline in so-called 'social capital' in Australia, but his industrial relations agenda would destroy jobs critical to our social connectedness.
The main source of social disadvantage in Australia still hinges around the ability to find and hold a job. A job not only provides income. It also provides a means of meeting people and developing close relationships with others.
We know that unemployment can tear people's lives apart. We also know that children in jobless households are more likely to leave school early, become unemployed themselves, and wind up on welfare support.
There is no surer way of destroying social capital in Australia than through job-destroying labour market regulation.
If Labor gets into government, it will unwind our workplace reforms that have been so important to strong job growth and higher productivity in recent years.
Driven by the trade union movement, Labor plans to: abolish Australian Workplace Agreements; give unions new rights to enter workplaces; place new burdens on employers that would impede the creation of part-time and casual jobs; and discriminate in awarding government contracts against companies who don't toe the union line.
Labor continues to block the Government's reforms of unfair dismissal laws - laws that make firms less likely to hire marginal candidates or the long-term unemployed.
I need not remind you that, if elected, a Federal Labor Government would join eight other Labor Governments across Australia. Labor would govern absolutely without let or hindrance. There would be no checks and balances. This would give the green light to a return to greater union domination of our industrial relations system.
If we were to lose office, this is the policy loss I would grieve about most because our flexible workplace relations have underpinned Australia's productivity improvement, higher living standards and adaptability to change in the last decade.
Don't take my word for it. Access Economics - the consultancy firm that regularly provides economic advice to Labor - exposed the threat to Australia's economy from Mr Latham's industrial relations policy earlier this month. It said that: 'taken collectively ... the ALP workplace relations platform measures could reinforce one another in terms of their negative impacts on productivity, wages, on-costs and employment.' As a result, it concluded, 'the compounding benefits of past reform which have delivered higher productivity growth, increasing real wages, and low unemployment could work in reverse'.
Today, our economy is stronger and more competitive than ever. The last eight and a half years have seen rising living standards, rising employment, low interest rates and low inflation. This prosperity has in turn translated into rising expenditure on health, aged care, education and all the other things that are important to improving the lives of Australians.
If we want to build a better Australia, we simply do not have the lazy option of taking this prosperity for granted.
MORE CHOICE AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR AUSTRALIAN WOMEN
Precisely because Labor threatens our prosperity and the social dividend of that prosperity, it threatens the avenues of advancement for Australian women.
The Liberal Party and our political forebears have a very proud record, both in the area of women's representation and more broadly in the advancement of women in Australian society.
Women from the Liberal Party's forebears were the first elected to the House of Representatives, and almost all the State parliaments. The Liberal Party was the first political party in the country to make provision for equal numbers of men and women in some of its senior party positions, particularly in the Victorian Division.
It was a Liberal Government that introduced child endowment. It was a Liberal Government that established the first national childcare office. It was a Liberal Government that first recognised the rights of married pensioners in the tax system. It was a Liberal Government that introduced many of the provisions for private health insurance that are so important for women.
We are a party that values choice and individuality among women. We do not believe in advancing certain categories of women, or indeed, certain categories of men. We want to mobilise the talents of all women in Australian society with policies that promote wider opportunity and wider choice.
Our work and family package in this year's budget was based on the view that the government's role is to help facilitate choice for Australian women and that there is no single solution for managing demands of work and family.
With this package, total assistance to families will have increased by over $6 billion a year since 1996. The base rate of family assistance has increased from less than $600 per child in January 1996 to almost $1,700 per child in July 2004, a real increase of over 100 per cent.
Our workplace relations policies also reflect our commitment to expanding choice and opportunities for women. Increased labour force participation by women continues to be a major influence on our labour market. For example, female part-time employment is increasing at an annual average rate of 3.5 per cent, more than twice the rate for the labour force as a whole.
We have made it easier for women to negotiate working arrangements that provide a better balance between work and family. Women are now more likely than the average to be covered by a federal certified agreement that includes carer's leave or provisions for access to regular part-time work. At the same time, the workplace relations safety net has been strengthened to encourage the full participation of women in the workforce on a full-time, part-time, casual or job-sharing basis.
In a speech in Adelaide last week, I spoke about my Government's commitment to building an enterprise culture in Australia. Women are at the leading edge of new work arrangements and options, leveraging off information technology and the shift towards smaller, decentralised business models.
About one-third of Australia's 1.6 million small business operators are women. Our existing Small Business Enterprise Culture programme supports skills development projects and mentoring services tailored to the needs of women.
Many Australian women are looking for new options to work from home with the extra scope this gives them to achieve the right balance between work and family. I used the example in my speech last week of a woman with accounting skills setting up a home-based business to do tax returns and the Government aims to take additional steps to assist Australians wanting to establish home-based businesses.
I also spoke in Adelaide about helping mature-age Australians stay in touch with the labour market in a world of rapid economic change. The Coalition's Job Network is currently providing more than 100,000 mature age workers with targeted assistance to maximise their employment opportunities. As a government, we are committed to meeting the challenge of an ageing society in a way that expands opportunities and choices for older Australians.
This year's budget also included initiatives to deliver a more flexible and adaptable retirement system with significant benefits to Australian women. As well as increasing the Government's superannuation co-contribution to assist low and middle income earners, we are providing people with more flexibility in using superannuation savings to purchase an income stream while continuing to do some work.
This is all part of what I have termed 'getting the big things right' for Australians. Keeping our eye on the ball with responsible economic management, but also looking over the horizon at our nation's long-term social challenges.
CHALLENGES FOR OUR PARTY'S FUTURE
None of us - least of all political parties - can afford to be overly nostalgic about the past or too self-congratulatory about the present. As Liberals, we need to face the challenges of the future.
First, the immediate one - we need to mobilise for the coming political battle with Labor at the federal election when it is called. As I've said to my colleagues in Canberra, the Government is in the fight of its life and only eight seats separate us from political oblivion.
It will be difficult but we have a very good story to tell. And all of us need to be out there telling it - in our communities, over the back fence and in our workplaces. So I appeal to you all to turn your minds and your energies (and perhaps even your wallets) to what is required for victory.
The second challenge is equally great, if less immediate. All political parties - the Liberal Party, the National Party, and the Labor Party - need to confront the fact that they are becoming too narrow. Their base of membership has narrowed and they need to find ways of relating more comprehensively to community concerns.
By and large, people are not joining institutions anymore in the way they used to when I was growing up and entering adult life. This is a challenge as much for churches, community and other voluntary groups as it is for political parties.
Political parties have to do a better job of attracting members and harnessing community support. This is very important to our body politic because if you end up with political parties being dominated and run by people whose whole life has revolved around politics then you are going to get a narrow set of perspectives and a shallow reservoir of experience.
The Liberal Party is the natural party of Middle Australia and we need to nurture that. That doesn't mean that we don't also attract high-profile candidates. Unlike the Labor Party, we actually make our high-profile candidates go through local pre-selection processes. But we do need to stay very much in tune with community sentiment and draw on wide community experience.
Finally, as Liberals we need to be conscious of our history and our intellectual inheritance as a tool in the battle of ideas. Ultimately you need the courage of convictions in politics and on our side we have a rich intellectual tradition from both the classical liberal and conservative traditions. As I've said many times, the Liberal Party is a broad church that draws on both these traditions.
Australian Liberalism also has a great history going back to colonial politics, to the Federation years and up through Menzies and the great political battles of last century. And without being overly sentimental, we should be proud of our history and draw on it to fight the political battles of today and tomorrow.
CONCLUSION
The inheritance of Australian Liberalism is an important part of the broader history of Australia. A prosperous economy and a fair and decent society are central to this inheritance. And they have been central to what my government has sought to deliver to the Australian people.
A century ago - at the time the Australian Women's National League was formed - a new nation's yearning for prosperity and fairness was expressed in policies that largely set Australia apart from the world. High industry protection, centralised industrial relations and the White Australia Policy betrayed a certain lack of ease about who we were and what we could be.
Today, a very different Australia faces the challenges of the twenty-first century. We are a strong, competitive economy no longer reliant on protection. We are a tolerant, diverse society, confident about our place in the world.
While we have made our mistakes as a country, this story of change and achievement is one all Australians can be proud of. And the Liberal Party can be proud of its role in that story.
Historically, the Liberal Party has never been a party of individualistic libertarians. With roots deep in the aspirations of Middle Australia, we have sought to strike a common sense balance between a healthy scepticism about what governments can achieve, and the Australian tradition of believing that there is a role for government beyond being simply a keeper of the ring.
A balance that understands the need for both a strong economy and a caring community. A balance that supports a decent safety net, but also aims to build greater self-reliance and personal responsibility.
A balance that, despite changing times, still embodies the values of those who founded the Liberal Party, including the members of the Australian Women's National League.
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