OPENING OF TH; VASiX HOUSING AJXILIARX
HOMES AT MANiINTJTRE ROAD, HAdTHORN,
VICTORIA, ON 17TH MARCHi, 1963.
Skeech by the Prime Minister,. the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Menzies
Mrs. Vasey and Ladies and Gentlemen t
I don't really have to make a spLeech to you this
afternoon because I have a variety of very good reasons for
being delighted to be here. After all, this is in Manningtree
Road and aboat two doors along many years ago, I used to be
Lound hanging around with a rather sheepish look you know
because my wife lived there. ( Laughter) Between her charms
and the smell of the pittosporua hedge, I was a " goner".
( Laughter) Well, that I think, is a very interesting thing
to remember. And then I have been fascinated to feel that I was
coming here this afternoon because something was going to be
done on behalf of war widows, strongly promoted by a very
famous war widow, Mrs. Yasey herself. ( Applause) I had the
singular good fortune to be a friend of her late husband, one
of the most famous fighting soldiers in the history of
Australia. ( Applause) I always remember with some satisfaction,
when I first went out of office I know you are all looking
forward to the second occasion ( Laughter) but when i first
went out of office I met George Vasey who was known as " Air"
when we were at school together " Air" Vasey Allan. He
addressed me in a public place in language that would have
done credit to Mr. Rose at Alice Sprinks. ( laughter) And he
wanted to know why I wasn't still Prime Minister. I remember
this vividly because he was the only man who thought that way
at that time. But Mrs. Vasoy, I would hate this occasion to go by
without me saying on behalf of everybody here and hundreds
and thousands of people who are not here, that your spirited
and splendid work for war widows is one of the great things
in the contemporary history of Australia. ( Applause) I am
sure that you very frequently disagree with me, but I rwer
disagree with you. ( Laughter)
Now the third thing I want to say is that the pretty
girl I was what's the old-fashioned expression? courting
is that out of date now? in Manningtree Road made the grat
error of marrying me and then in due course I became a politician
and she survived that and so it went on. And one morning, years
and years ago, sho said to me, " Xou know, you talk about social
services but the one thin" that really matters is housing for
old people. This is, I think, a great social problem." And for
once in my life I listened to my wife husbands don't always,
you know and so I gave it a little thought, and I finally
went to my Cabinet and said, " Let's have some scheme under
which housing can be provided not institutional housing, not
these great barracks of places in which people feel they are
numbers and not human beings but let's have some system under
which houses can be built or flats or whatever it may be, so that
people live as individuals and mingle socially as they would in
their ordinary private days." 0 0
2-
And so we began this scheme and whatever ugly
things may be stated in my obituary ( and 1 can well imagine
them), I am hoping that even in some of the obituaries this
great scheme may find a place; because we began by saying,
with that almost mechanised reaction that governments have
" pound for pound". It is like saying, " one man une vote."
You know " pound for pound" and " we'll find a pound for a
pound" and since then, as you know, we've improve3d on it.
It is very interesting to realise that although this was a
highly experimental matter when? 5t 6 7 years ago,
somewhere around there, we have at present, commitments
ourselves as a Government of œ 1614. And that means, if I am
rightly informed by the learned clerks in my office, that
when the present approved grants have been expended, there
will have been accommodation provided for 1 5,000 people.
( Applause). Well, of course, I can hardly refer lightly to
the Vasey Housing Incorporated because to tell you the
truth I was always more frightened of Mrs. Vasey than I
was o1George ( Laughter) and she has a habit of getting
her own way, and quite rightly. She is a charming pirate
when it comes to dealing with governments. But the best
proof of this is that when the current project is completed,
Commonwealth grants in favour of this auxiliary will have
totalled just on a quarter of a million pounds. Now this,
I think, does some trifling credit to the Commonwealth,
which usually gets so little that it might as well claim
some, but above all things, it demonstrates the enormous
energy and enthusiasm and imagination that has been put
into this scheme. And this, of course, is quite right.
I am getting along in years myself. I read
in one of the Melbourne papers the other day when I was
honoured by Her Majesty that perhaps this would be a good
opportunity to make way for a younger man. ( Laughter)
I think it is. Bring him along, please. Lt3ut, anyhow,
we are all not any younger than we were, btI have felt for
years now that I would hate, towards the end of my own
life, whatever my circumstances might be, to be regarded
as one of a regiment of people.
I wonder if I might say something to you that
I have said before, but not to you. ' When I was a schoolboy
in Ballarat, I lived with an old 3cots grandmother who had
restricted views, being a good Scots grandmother about life
and about what I ought to do and all this kind ol' t*; ing,
but over the road from the cottage in which she lived 3was
the benevolent asylum, curtly known in those days as AThe
Benev." Corrugated iron fence, horrible-looking old building
everything rather musty, horrible as I now know, institutionalised
all that has gone and nothing has done more to dispose
of it than this great scheme and the work that people have
done, Nobody in this pl~ ace will feel obliged or
institutional in any way. This is the answer to it, that
people should live in their own homes, whether those homes
are houses or fiats or whatever they may be that they should
live, as Mrs. Vasey beautifuilly put it, in li gnity and not
oee * 9 e. e / 3
3
in dependence living their own lives,, living among their
own friends, f'eeling that this is something which continues
their citizenship of the country and which doesn't bring
it to an end. Nov this to soe, is a marvellous thing. It
has every human appeal In the world. And it is for that
reason, above all things, that I am delighted to be here.
Of course, I would be here if I were not delighted even,
because I an a little nervous about Mrs. Vasey and so if
she had said, " Nov come on my boy," I would have " come on,
my boy," you see. % aughter
But putting all that on one side, I am delighted
to be here, because the great social problem of our times,
the great social problem of the last ten years, fifteen
years, has been to create in our social services an abiding
and warm sense of humanity not of charity, but of loving
kindness in the true sense, of friendliness. So that everybody,
whether he's living or she's living in a great mansion
on inherited riches or living here or living somewhere else,
will feel that there is an atmosphere of humuan kindness and
that we, the people of Australia, are not being charitable or
condescending, but that we are friends together. Now this,
to Me, is the great secret of this matter and it stands to
the credit of Mrs. Vasey and all those who have worked with
her that instead of regarding themselves as people who
exercise pressure on governments which they do occasionally
very courteously they have primarily regarded themselves
as concerned with the continuing good life and good living
of the women for whom they speak.
The last thing I vant to say to you is wery now
and then I hear arguments about widows and trying to classify
widows I am not going into this business of classifying
widows but for myself there is a very special place in my
heart for women who are widows because their husbands served
this country to the last extremity of death. This is something
not to be forgotten. And it is because in my own imperfect
way I have been remembering it that I was proud and honoured
to come here today to declare this new group of buildings
open and to observe the command of my old friend, Mrs. Vasey.