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SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN LABOR CENTENARY
ADELAIDE 11 MAY 1991
I have had the honour this year, as leader of the Australian
Labor Party, of speaking at Party functions throughout
Australia cel. ebrating our centenary year.
Throughout Auistralia, trades unions and working people
generally madte an historic decision in 1891.
In the wake of the massive industrial upheavals of that
time, they decided to pursue their goals through political,
and not just industrial, means.
They decided to establish a political party.
No one place, so single State can make an unchallenged claim
to be the birthplace of our great Party.
Barcaldine in May 1891 saw the historic strike by
the: Shearers' Union, and the equally historic
decision by the Government of Queensland led by
that arch-Tory Sir Samuel Griffith to send in the
troops against the strikers.
Collingwood on 17 April 1891 saw John Hancock's
famous'by-election victory that made him the first
member of the Victorian Parliament elected on a
definite Labor platform
Thirteen days earlier, Balmain on 4 April 1891 saw
the establishment of the first branch of the Labor
Electoral League in New South Wales the
precursor of Labor's tremendous electoral success
in June 1891, when 35 Labor candidates were
elected as members of the NSW Parliament
It was in January 1891 that South Australian Labor reached
its first major landmark.
On 7 January 1891, at the Selborne Hotel in Pinie Street,
the United Trades and Labor Council formally established the
United Labor Party to endorse candidates on a Labor platform
for parliamentary election.
At the first available opportunity, in the election of 1893,
Labor won 10 of the 54 seats in the House of Assembly.
My friends,
It is right that one hundred years later we ask ourselves
what is the significance today of these landmark decisions
by our predecessors.
It was basically a simple decision based on simple facts.
At Barcaldine, Collingwood, Balmain and Adelaide, working
people recognised that the only way to protect their rights,
to advance the cause, to get better working conditions, to
raise living standards for themselves and their families,
was through action in Parliament not through the weapon of
the strike but through the challenge of the ballot box
When I spoke last weekend at Barcaldine, I said there were
three important lessons that can be drawn from this crucial
decision. First, there is the lesson of that fundamental commitment to
Parliament.
Australia today is one of the world's great parliamentary
democracies. The commitment and determination of the
Australian Labor Party has helped to make it so.
The second enduring lesson learned from 1891 concerns the
vital link between industrial labour and political Labor.
The strength of one remains the strength of the other.
It is true that all Labor Governments have an overriding
responsibility to the nation as a whole. We can never
succeed if we merely represent sectional interests.
Yet it is equally true that cooperation between the union
movement and Labor Governments remain crucial to the success
of both and vital to the health of the wider community.
I am deeply proud that, 100 years after the unions created
the Labor Party, our constructive cooperation has never been
better exemplified than it is today through the Accord.
The third lesson of 1891 is a lesson for our adversaries as
much as for ourselves.
This Party and this Labor movement could never have survived
for a century unless we had learned the hard lessons of
adversity.
Time and time again, over the last 100 years, Labor has been
written down and written off and time and time again we
have rebounded from adversity to success.
My friends,
There is a further point of historical interest that can be
recorded tonight.
Last Wednesday May 8 the Federal Labor Party equalled
the record petriod of continuous Labor rule set in the 1940s
by the Curtini and Chifley Governments.
John Curtin keeame Prime Minister on 7 October 1941 a few
months short of fifty years ago.
Ben Chifley wras defeated at the general election of
December 1949.
The intervening 8 years, 2 months, and 3 days were days of
unrivalled Labor achievement guiding Australia through the
perils of war and laying the basis for post-war
reconstruction in a fairer and progressive Australia.
I was elected. Prime Minister on 5 March 1983 and last
Wednesday saw my Government attain that milestone of 8
years, 2 months and 3 days of consecutive and continuous
Labor Governmuent.
There is nothing special about milestones. This is not an
occasion for beating the drum or waving the banner.
All I want to say on this occasion is a message that
reinforces the message of our Party's centenary.
Look back over the last decade or so and you find a decade
of Labor political dominance, throughout Australia.
We should be proud of what we have done proud that we have
been able to win, and win again, the confidence of the
Australian people
and proud that we have been able to deliver, and
deliver again, on our commitment to those in whose
interests we govern.
But look back over the last ten decades since our foundation
and you see many tough times many years when Labor was in
the wilderness years when we fought each other as
vigorously as we fought our opponents years when we could
not for the life of us persuade the Australian people that
we were ready for the challenge and the responsibility of
government. Labor knows what it is to go through hard times.
We have never been handed political or electoral success on
a plate.
We have always had to fight, and to fight hard, in the
interests of -the people whom we represent.
4.
Tonight, it is important that we remember and that we
remind our opponents that we know how to fight and that we
know how to fight back.
As far as the Federal Party is concerned, I will fight and
fight hard to ensure our record of achievement remains
unbroken.
With your help, we will succeed.