.1963 AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIP CON'VENTION
THE RIGHT HONORABLE SIR ROBERT MENZIES, M. P.,
PRI. E MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA.
Sir, Mr. Calwell, Dr. Schnyder, ladies and gentlemen;
Arthur Calwell and I have both had a pretty good
write-up or a speak-up this morning, I because I have now
become a thistle and he because he has just become a celebrated
author. It used to be said, " Oh that mine adversary had
written a book." Well, he has written a book. What is more,
I am going to buy a few copies to present to my friends for
the very good reason that if it turns out that what he has
written is unconvincing it will do me a lot of good, and
if it is convincing I shall have to mend my methods.
As for being a thistle, I met my old friend and
political opponent, John Dedman, yesterday and I dare say that
he is here this morning. He took up with me the question of
the interpretation of the motto of this order which I had
thought to mean, " Wha daur meddle wi' me!" " Who dares to
meddle with me!" But he assured me, if I remember accurately,
that the interpretation is, " Meddle with me and I will jag you".
I will check up on that and tell him about it when I see him.
The accent of this conference is on youth. Really
remarkable things have happened in my own political liftime.
It does not seem so long ago although it is about 25 years ago
that we had some experts brought to Australia who issued, with
all the confidence of statisticians, a prognosis of future
population trends in this country. They assured us that the
population of Australia woul never be more than 7,500,000,
that it would reach that total about 1975 and that, thereafter,
the population would begin to decline. You know, one cannot
argue about figures. Thqre they were.
.4
Another remarkable thing was undoubtedly happening at
that time. Through the activities of' medical science and because
of important measuxes of public health the expectation of life in
Australia was growing very rapidly. For example, the expectation
of' life of' a male child when I was born was about 50 years. Now,
it is about 70 years. This process was going on. Therefore, a
remarkable demographic fact was establishing itself' in Australia.
That was that the number of people who were of what we call
pensionable age kept increasing and the number of' people who
were actively contributing in the earning phases of' their
life was becoming a smaller proportion of' the population.
That was the position just before the war and it was on those
assumptions that a variety of things took place. You all know
how these have been falsified in the light of' history. But
nothing has done so much to falisify them as the immigration
programme. And inside the immigration programme nothing is more
remarkable than the proportion of' young men and women boys
and girls to the total increase, through this means, in our
population. The Minister was kind enough to have me provided with
a figure or two. That is what Ministers are for when the
Prime Minister has to open something. I was astonLshed
although I should have known them at the figures. There
have been 672,000 post-war immigrants who were under 21 years
of' age on their arrival. A total of' 700,000 children have been
born to immigrant parents over this period. In other words
and. Mr. Heydon assures me the figures are correct one quarter
of our people in Australia under 21 years of age either came
here with their parents or were born here to imniigragits since
the war. This has been, one of the most remarkable events
ini our hinstory. Its sigxnificance can hardly be over-estjwmated..
It presents pa challep'r tpu-saM oreJA qtltyg it preq~ pts
to us a great sou roe Q f sa-6isf action, bec. 4' use it means that
3.
the ratio which our earning population bears to the whole is
increasing. Indeed, it has been increasing steadily since the
war. It has been a silent social revolution which has been of
immense value to Australia as a whole.
There is another thing I should like to say which
has been prompted by what I have just been saying about the
proportion of young people in our community. We talk, do we not-
I know you do, because you come here year by year with great
public spirit about the problems of assimilation. Perhaps.
we tend to believe that the problem is one of the native-born
Australians let us say the old Australians conscientiously
setting about the process of assimilating other people who have
come into the country. But let us not forget that the receiving
body, the total Australian people the body corporate of the
Australian people has itself changed materially. It now
includes a tremendous percentage of groups of children who
have come here or who have been born here of those who came here.
In other owrds, the assimilating body itself is not static. This
body includes in its many hundreds of thousands people who,
to use this wretched word, have been assimilated into the
Australian community. So year by year, decade by decade, it has
become a remarkably new community. It means that we are not to
get into our heads stuffy ideas that some of us are of the old
brigade and it is very nice of us to be dealing with people
who arrive here. We must realise that, although some of us as
individuals may not have changed very much, Australia as a
community is experiencing a sea change into something rich and
strange. These conventions provide a magnificent opportunity
for us to reflect on some of these truths, to broaden our
understanding of the problem with which wqe are dealing, to
take pride in the past, and to exhibit courage and determination
for the future.
It is a very great pleasure to me to be here. It
is indeed a very great pleasure for me to be accompanied by my
wife who, I would have you know, is at least as responsible for
the twins as I am. The older I grow the more I realise that,
although a good deal of hostility is to be found in the wo rld
I know something about that there is a tremendous lot of
generosity. People give one credit for the strangest things.
Many years ago nobody rushed up to me and said, " What an
extraordinary chap you are to have a family of a couple of sons
and a daughter". Oh, no! That was the merest commonplace.
Nowadays, if I go to a club or some other place where men gather
together I find myself saying to somebody, " You have some grandchildren,
have you not, old chap?" He replies, " Oh yes, I have
seven." Then I preen myself and say, " I have nine". Then he
congratulates me and shakes hands with me. Not only for the
earlier reasons I have mentioned but also for this reason, I
think that this is a rapidly improving community.
Sir, I shall not occupy your time further. As I
have said, it is a privilege for me to be here. It is a very
great piece of luck that before I have finished I have remembered
why I am here. I declare the convention open.
Department of Immigration,
CANBERRA. A. C. T.
June, 4th, 1963.