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Professor Lucas, many distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I’m very happy to participate in this little gathering and more happy that it forms part of Australia week in London because it adds another element to a remarkable week in which we who have come from Australia and you who, how should I put it, push the Australian cause on a daily basis in London, have been able to represent our country in a very positive and broadly based fashion.
I’m also delighted, of course, that the centre that has been incorporated into the college and was the recipient of the government’s support a short while ago and as a result of that and other support that it receives, will be able to broaden an understanding and a communication of Australia, Australian history, Australian literature, Australian ways and Australian customs, not only to the British but also to the rest of Europe, carries the
name of the very illustrious founder of the political party that it is my privilege to lead. And in the totally bi-partisan spirit of this mission to the United Kingdom, I know that I won’t be transgressing on that in any way, in spending a moment to remark upon the very proper connection between the late Sir Robert Menzies and education and learning within Australia.
Menzies career, of course, was quite remarkable. He was Prime Minister at the time of the outbreak of World War II. It was he who intoned those never to be forgotten words by that generation when he said that it was his melancholy duty to inform the people of Australia that a state of war existed between Australia and Germany. He was to last only two years in that job. He spent four months of that period as a member of the Imperial
War Cabinet here in London. And that was a remarkable period of time. And out of that experience grew a number of myths including the quite extraordinary proposition that he wished to pursue a career in British politics. One of the more absurd propositions that was brewed and brought about him.
But as an example of the special place that Menzies held then as Prime Minister of Australia and of the special role that Australia had at that time way back in the early years of World War II, it is often not know that one of the things that Menzies endeavoured to do was to in some way improve relations between the then neutral republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. And he journeyed one weekend to Dublin to see if President de Valera and then returned and it is recorded in his diary, called Dark and Hurrying days, how fruitless the mission proved to be given, as he recorded it, the intransigent attitudes held on both sides, and he underlined both sides of the argument. But that little insight what, all those years ago, was an illustration of the properly independent role that the then Prime Minister of Australia, despite being a member of the Imperial War Cabinet was pursuing in properly trying to broker a better understanding between the two countries that have contributed so much to the modern Australia.
The Menzies connection with education of course is well remembered. I think there were two great things that Sir Robert Menzies did for education. The one that would be best known in this gathering of course would be the extraordinary increase arising out of the Murray Committee Report in the late 1950s in the level of commonwealth provision for tertiary education. And it was through that support that university education came within the reach of hundreds of thousands of Australians who would otherwise have been denied through economic circumstances the opportunity of a university education.
The other great contribution that Menzies made to education was the way in which he ended one hundred years of discrimination against particularly Australian Catholics whose school system they had maintained without government support since Sir Henry Parks inaugurated the free compulsory and secular education system in New South Wales and it was replicated around Australia in the 19th century. And that particular act which contributed so much to the breaking down of what were then still quite significant barriers and it led to the development of what is probably a wider variety of choice within primary and secondary education than is perhaps available in any other comparable country around the world.
So the name of Menzies is easily linked in the Australian political memory with education. I’m delighted to be here today, because I believe very much in the cause of this centre. And can I pay tribute to all of those who have been associated with the centre over the years, can I particularly acknowledge in this gathering the patient advocacy of the cause that I receive from time to time from both, from the two Michael’s. From Michael Cook who you know, and another who some of you may not know, but you will
soon get to know extremely well and that’s Michael L’Estrange who is the High Commissioner Designate from Australia to the United Kingdom. They were quietly persistent, always eloquent, always understanding and, along with a lot of other people, ultimately successful. So, I do want to thank all of you. I hope the centre fulfils its mission, I know it will. It will interpret modern Australia to Londoners, to the British and to others, and in that way add very much to our capacity to present ourselves to the world.
Professor Lucas, thank you very much for having me here. I appreciate very much, I have great pleasure in, as it were, formally marking the incorporation of the Centre into Kings College and I wish all who study here, all who teach here and all who are touched by this institution great good fortune.
Thank you.
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