PM Transcripts

ORATION BY THE PRIM~ E MINISTER AT THE HAND) ING OVER TO
THE BATHUJRST CITY COUNCIL OF THE COTTAGE OF J. B. CHIFLEY,
BATHURST 24 MARCH 1973
It is a profound measure of weight and force of Ben Chifley's
personality that of the 14 Australian Prime Ministers now dead, he is
outstandingly the one whose memory is clearest and strongest in the
hearts and minds of his countrymen. The Chifley legend I use the
word in its nobler sense has a force and meaning, even for the
new generation which never knew him. Each of us will have our own
opinion about who was the greatest of Australian Prime Ministers. I
venture to suggest, however, that there would be no dispute as to who
was the best loved.
One of the sources of Chifley's ability to inspire affection
was the simplicity of his life style. This cottage his only real
home in or out of office symbolised it. That is not to say that
Chifley was a simple man. He had inner reserves and an outer reserve
which sprang from a character of great complexity. There was a very
private Chifley unknown to the public, known perhaps not entirely
even to his closest colleagues. For all his great warmth, for all
his easy fellowship, for all the loyalty and love his inspires, he
was in fact never " one of the boys". In this sense there was another
Chifley apart, above, even dare one say it aloof.
So great is the hold of the Chifley memory on the Australian
Labor Party that it is usually forgotten how untypical of Labor leaders
he actually was; paradoxically he has become the archetype for our
leadership. There is something naturally very appealing to the Party
in the rise of an engine driver to Prime Minister; yreat of the 11 of
us who have led the Parliamentary Labor Party, only he and Matthew
Charlton fit the classic type. So in this, as in so many other ways,
Chifley was in a class of his own.
It is a great thing for us all to be here at Ben Chifley's
home not just this cottage but in this city which was so very much
his city. It is a very moving thing for me to be here as the first
Labor Prime Minister of Australia since Chifley. For us allt for the
Australian Labor Party, Bathurst holds a very special meaning at his
birthplace, his only real home; among the people who shared with him
the bitterness and frustrations of the thirties, the victories and
achievements of the forties. He was a Bathurst man through and through.
He used to say " No Chifley ever left Bathurst except feet first".
He did leave Bathurst to give on the national scale the same service
that he had, for so many years, given Bathurst in local affairs,
But it was to this city and the people of this city that he always
returned and did return to his last rest.
It is saddening to find that after 22 years his grave has
fallen into disrepair. When we looked into the matter we found there
was no machinery available to fulfil what is clearly a national
responsibility and should be a national charge, so I have decided that
henceforth the Australian Government shall assume responsibility for
maintaining the graves of all former Prime Ministers and I have asked my
colleague Don Willesee, the Special Minister of State, to make the
necessary arrangements. It is fitting that monuments and memorials of our great should
be preserved and cared for. We are not so rich in the memorabilia of
history that we can afford to allow them to be lost or neglected. I
congratulate all those who have worked for the preservation of this
cottage. Nonetheless, Chifleyts lasting memorial lies in what he
achieved for his nation and he himself has his true resting place in the
hearts of his countrymen. Those monuments are imperishable; that place
cannot be moved.