CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EBRODUTL8PM
AUSTRAIA(
SPEECH AT NSW ALP ELECTION CAMPAIGN LAUNCH, SYDNEY, 13 MARCH 1984
FELLOW AUSTRALIANS, Just over a year ago I spoke at another policy ' Launch fo
the Australian Labor Party in this great city of yours in this
great city of ours.
I pledged myself and our Party to an unremittinqi effort
to bring Australians together to beat the economic crisis and to
end the politics of division and confrontation.
Twelve months later, the Australian community is more
cohesive, more united, than it has been in living memory.
Industrial disputation has fallen to historically low
levels. And through this process of reconciliation, consultation
and co-operation, we have turned the nation's economy around.
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The confidence and self-confidence of the Australian
people has been restored.
In all this effort, the people of New South Wale3, the
business community of New Sout~ h WaleS, the union movement of New
South Wales, and the Wran labor Government of New South Wales,
have made a magnificent contribution.
Within a month of the swearing in of our Government on
the eleventh of March 1983, I convened the National Economic
Summit Conference. All the participants made tneir contribution, but some
were outstanding. And central to the success of the Summit not just its
work but its spirit was the role played by the Premier of New
South Wales, Neville Wran.
And Neville Wran and his Labor Government of New South
Wales have continued to play a crucial role in the great work of
building upon the Summit the great task of national
reconciliation, national recovery, and national reconstruction.
And it is absolutely vital for the future of Australia
that Neville Wran and his Government continue that work in the
critical years ahead.
We know all too well the alternative.
We know all too well the utterly negative attitudes of
the Liberals and the Nationals the Parties of confrontation and
conflict, the Parties of denigration and detraction.
They denigrated the Summit.
They derided the concept of consensus.
They denounced the Prices and Incomes Accord the very
key to our strategy for economic recovery.
And now, in their desperation, they are denouncing,
deriding, denigrating and defacing the very institutions which
make up the fabric and foundations of our free, open, democratic
society. And when we say that experience is a major issue in this
New South Wales election, we mean not only the vast experience of
Neville Wran and his team in dealing with the immense and complex
problems involved in governing Australia's largest State.
We mean your own experience your own knowledge of
what our opponents really stand for the old politics of
divisiveness and confrontation, inplace of the co-operation and
consultation on which we, as the Government of Australia and the
Government of New South Wales, are building a better nation for
all Australians. Eight years ago, Neville Wran won a watershed victory
which paved the way for Labor's great resurgence throughout
Australia and ultimately to the historic victory of the fifth of
March 1983. So that is something every Australian should be grateful
for and I stand here tonight to acknowledge my own debt.
But much more important has been the contribution and
co-operation from Neville Wran and his Labor Government of New
South Wales in the task of rebuilding Australia over the past
year. And without that co-operation, the continuing work would
suffer a tremendous blow.
New South Wales needs a Labor Government.
But all Australia needs a Labor Government in New South
Wales.
There must be an end to the spurious campaiqn of
villification, this new McCarthyism, Liberal-style.
And the people alone can now end it.
And they can end it once and for all by returning Neville
Wran and the Labor Government on the 24th of March.
I need Neville Wran. New South Wales needs Neville Wran.
Australia needs Neville Wran.
Let him get on with the job the real task of building a
better New South Wales and helping our Government build a better
Australia.