QUEENSLAND YOUNG* LIBERALS
YOUTH DIDNN3MR
Brisbane, QId 6 AUGUST 1970
รต pqef~ bythePrime Minister, Mr. John Gorton
Mr. President, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Mention has been made of a generation gap, and that is a subject to which
I have been devoting some thought because we hear so much about it. And I find that
I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't exist. You would know better than i,
whether it does or not. I can only say that I don't feel that it exists.
Of course there are occasiorally difficulties in communication between an
older man and a younger one, but there are equally difficulties in communication
between an older man and another older one and a young man and a young one. It
is n~ t a -matter, 1. suggest, of age, but a matter of whether one talks the same language,
thinks the same way and can carry on a dialogue. And I think that in Australia today,
as far as I have experienced it, I have been able to carry on dialogues, discussions
with young people, including my own sons, who disagree with almost everything I dc-'
But that doesn't prevent a reasonable exchange of ideas which sometimes ends in
agreement to differ, and sometimes in agreement to concur.
I have some doubt as to whether the generation gap of which we hear so
much really does exist, but as I say, you would know better that 1.
We hear of a generation of dissent, and I doubt whether that is true Of
course, now as alwa'ys in the past, young peoplc question the values that have been
handed on to them, question the customs which have been handed on to them.. They
always have. I can remember, and I am sure that I am the same as everybody else,
at one stage thinking that my own father just simply didn't understand anything about
what was going on at all. But as I got a little older, I realised he had learnt a lot in
the last few years.
But this is natural questioning, proper questioning of young people when they
find themselves inheriting a world and responsibility for trying to see that it becomes
a better one. So I doubt whether what we hear about so much is as widespread as it
is claimed to be.
Vl1hat vias said about the effect of the media in spreading these views again
is, I think, true, and true because news s news. A dog bites a man, that's natural.
If a man bites a dog, it's news because it is unusual and abnormal. And if that is so,
then the concentration of media and television on people invading university rooms,
of people sitting down in roadways.. the very fact that that is concentrated on
indicates that it is unusual and that it is abnormal, and I believethat it is. ./ 2
I believe that at any university, for exanmle, to which you may go, 90-95 percent Of
the students there are interested in their work, in their studies, in their sport, in
parties, in the normal things that make u-. p the life of young people.
And, of course, what goes on arid what is not recorded are the contributions
that youth makes to the community, the oositive contribution and I have taken
out some facts showing what the young people i n Queensland have done, which have
never made headlines, which have never been reported and which I think are more
typical of the young people of Australia than the things that do get before you.
Students of the Queensland University raised 000 for charity during their
commemoration week earlier this year. Students of the Queensland University raised
000 foi the aid of earthquake victim,--during World University Service week. Law
students at the u-niversity are providing a free legal aid scheme in co-operation with
a church's " life-line" activities. Studenits at this school, the Church of England Grammar
have raised $ 5,013 from their pocket-money this year to aid charity projects, and have
taken part in such activities as cleaniing up,: the beaches in Queensland. All these
things, I believe, are more typical of thle appro. ach of the youth of Australia than are
the things to which greater attention terifds to be given by the media.
But it is right and proper that questioning by youth should occur, questioning
of the world which has been handed on to them. And what sort of a world is it? dow
does youth see it' I naturally, do not k--now the answer to this, but I do know that the
world that is handed on to you is a much better one to live in than it used to be a
generation ago.
It is not so very long in Australia since there was immense industrial
injustice, so that people if they wished to earn their living on the wharves, would have
to go and stand in a bull ring and be Dicked out and hired for a day; perhaps chosen by
favouritism or chosen by a foremarn if they were prepared to pay part of the wages they
earned to that foreman. It is not so very long ago since that happened.
It is not so very long ago sice people feared unemployment and depression
and when a man would never know whether he could maintain his famii3: from one year,
to the next because unemployment and the fear of it hung over his head. And that, too,
led to industrial and economic injustice. it is not so very long ago sin ce the poverty
in this country vias so widespread that it is almost impossible for you, I think, to envisage
what it was like. And so there has beer: iimprovement in the world compared with what
it used to be. There have been great advances in combating poverty. There have been great
advai~ ces in giving economic security to mankind. There have been great advances in
the elimination injustice. And 3o, hovaever this present world may appear today
through the eyes of youth, it is much better than it was. And my generation can take
some credit, I t hink, for having built it into what it is today. / 3
3.
But now or very soon the results of your present questioning have got to
come to fruition. Your thoughts and asp-Irations will have to be put into practice, How
then would you want to improve the world as it is today?
This is the first question youth should ask itself, I think. How they wish to
improve the world, because until they know how and where they want to go, until they
know the kind a! improvements they wiant to make, they have very little chance indeed
of affecting any improvements because they don't know the paths they wish to follow.
Perhaps you would say, " We wiould like to build a world where there is no
poverty at all as there is undoubtedly too much now. We would like to build a world
where we had more feeling of involvement and of fulfilment in our lives. Where sheer
material benefits were not held in as great esteem as they are now, but rather a
comrnunit,, to which we could contribute and fromr which and in w~ hich we could develop
our own personality and feel a satisfaction in living". Perhaps these are the things
that you would seek as improvements. I hope they are because they are the kind of
improvements that I feel we can -make and should make in the years ahead.
. Lh ere will be difficulties in the way. Firstly, it will be necessary,
essential, to maintain that political freedom under which we operate at present. There
has been no threat to it in the lifetime of moost of you, but there have been threats of
that political freedom being overthrown in the past and there may be dangers of it
being attached from outside in the future.
But perhaps more significantly that freedom could be lost inside without
invasion. We see now tolerance carried to too great a length because although tolerance
is one of the essentials for a proper commrunity, yet there are some things which
cannot be tolerated. For example, you cannot safely tolerate intolerance, and we see
examples of intolerance in the name of dissent and in the name of civic rights. And
it will be necessary for young peo. ple to make their minds up as to where the line is drawn
when tolerance cannot be extended any further, and at what point it is necessary to
defend the civic rights of the vast majority against attack in the name of civic rights of
a minority. These will, I think, be difficulties, not great difficulties, not great but
nevertheless onies which will exist and do exist i this country.
But it will not be enough mnerely to maintain political freedom. It is essential
that it be properly used, I mean. by that that it is essential that if people are to
contribute to a country, then the contrasting and conflicting ideas whicn are advanced
by political parties ought to be critically examined by each individual, ought to be
analysed by each individual. And if faith is to be kept with those who have fought
for political freedom, then not by slogants, but by applied intelligence, should each
individual decide what ideas they wish to accept. 6 / 4
4.
Side by side with that political freedom, I hope that you will be able to
advance still further towards the economic freedom which some time ago we did not have
at all, which now we have in large measure, but which we can have in even greater
measure if we take the opportunity that this Australia gives us today.
This won't be easy. It won't be easy to abolish poverty unless enough wealth
is produced to enable that to happen. There is no easy way to run a country or to live
in it. It is essential in every sphere of life that there should be hard work, that there
should be the application of intelligence, that there should be a training of the mind,
that there should be a willingness to contribute to the community.
I think the youth of Australia today have those qualities in greater measure
than did we. I have the utmost hope for the future of this country because of that belief.
At any rcLe, the whole thing shortly will be in your hands. The fact that you are here
tonight irdicates a willingness to participate, a desire to participate, and if that is true,
then you have another weapon we did not have you have greater opportunities for
education to enable that cont ribution to be the better applied.
There are some eternal values, and those I think are these. We must have in
a proper community, kindness the one towards the other; tolerance within the limits of
which I have spo: en; sacrifice and work. Because I think you have these qualities and
because I know the opportunities for their use are in Australia more than they are in
any other country in the world, then I feel that you will meet the challenges before you.
I hope that at some time in twenty, or thirty years, one of you perhaps will stand where
I am standing today and talk to those who then will be young and you won't be because
youth is the stuff that does not endure and that vou will be able to say to the young to
whom you talk and my generation i:. herited a world that was not bad but by our
efforts we have made it so much better." ( And the young to whom you are talking will
probably look at you and think, " VWell you haven't done much about it, really, and it is
up to us to make it better still in the future. But if you can stand here and say that
and know that you are speaking the truth, then I think you will have contributed to the
building of a great nation, to the building of a great society and 1: 0o the development of
your own individual capacity which is quite possibly the most important thing of all.
And that I think is all I have to say to you. I did not want to talk on politics
tonight. I did riot want to talk orn issues of the hour, for they are ephemeral, they go,
but the results of applying one's mind and heart and spirit to trying to better the
society in which one is living are not ephemeral...... and this is an c, bjective I hope
will remain with you for the whole of your lives. Indeed, I think it will because I
finish as I began by saying I do not thirnk this is a generation of dissent or disenchantment.
I believe that for the vast majority of youth it is a generation which offers opportunities
unknown before and that the vast majority of youth are prepared to accept and use those
opportunities, and I hope I am right in that. But I am putting before you things as an
older man sees them. You will make up your own mind whether what I have said is
true or not.