SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER-~ THE RT. HON. RG.
MENZIES AT THE OPENING OF FELRAL COUNCIL OF
LIBERAL PARTY CONF". ENCE AT THE ALBERT HALL,
CANBI2LRA 3 16TH NOVEMBER, 3 1959
Sir, Ladies and Gentlemen:
This is, cC course, not the first time that I have had
the pleasure of opening the Annual Meeting of the Council. In
fact as I walked in this morning I was reminded of a few facts
that I had almost forgotten. But it is always a great pleasure
to come here because this is always a most important meeting.
Naturally as we approach the end of ten years we look
back and we look around us. I was called on the other day by a
very well-known American Journalist who had been on his travels
around the world and hie said something to me which other people
have said also, and therefore it's worth recording. He said:
" You know there are very many interesting countries in the
world, but Australia, today, is a most exciting country". Now
lots of people have said that to me; not because they wanted to
please me because most of them had nothing to gain from my
opinion. But they are right: this is a most exciting country,
It isn't exciting because we are exciting nobody a& er accused
us of that it isn't exciting because we have revolutions or
counter-revolutions, or change our Government every few months.
All that kind of excitement is absent from Australia. It is
exciting because no country of even comparable size in the
world or population inthe world is doing so much, is so busy
building its future, so busy creating the great nation that it
will some day be. This is what strikes the intelligent onlooker:
" Ten million people", he says to himself " that's not many;
what goes on here?" and when he looks around and finds out what
goes on here his first impression is that it's an amazing thing
that ten million people should be achieving it. And of course,
particularly, because he is so frequently told before he comes
to Australia that we are easy-going, ' that we are not very fond
of work, that we are devoted to sport and that, really, we are
not very seriously-minded people. That's what he is told before
he comes here and wvhen he comes here he finds an almost turbulent
process of developiient going on and he finds Australia attracting
the attention of the rest ofthe world and attracting the
resources of the rest of the world as nobody ten years ago
would have imagined to be possible.
Now, that I think is all completely true and the paradox
of it is that this dynamic process that is going on in Australia
should be to some material extent the consequence of
steady, stable and sober Government policies. That may sound
paradoxical, but of course, itis a profoundly true thing. A lot
of racketting, and excitement and speculation and speculative
ideas in the top bracket of Government and you'll find a good
deal of dullness further down, and a good deal of anxiety, a
loss of confidence; but if you can create all those things a
feeling of confidence, a feeling that there is stability, that
there is soundness, 7 that steady and intelligent courses are being
pursued if you can find that in Government, whether it's
Federal or State, then you have the pro-condition for this
enormous development. There are many things that are set out in thiat very
good little pamphlet " The First Ten Years" which I hope that
quite a number of people will have read before long, but which
many people have not yet read. perhaps thore is one aspect
of this matter that ought to be mentioned: I just want tCo say
a few words about, in fact about four aspects of the last ton
years. And the first is on the financial side. Ton years ago
when we came back into office we had been told quite blankly by
our predecessors, that it was quite impossible to get hold crf
dollars; that dollars could neither be begged, borrowed or
stolen; that in points of fact we must accommodate ourselves to
the idea that the world of trade was being divided into two
parts and that we must live on hard commons in relation to dollars.
Tlithin six months of our roturnir spite of that gloomy
advice, we had secured in ' Jashington from the tlorld Bank
100 million dollars for vitally needed developmental machinery
in Australia six months after we came into office. And since
then the process has gone on. Ten years ago the amount of investment
inthis country on private account from overseas was
very small, relatively small at any rate. But the last three
years, or four years, whenever we have a look at the Budget, we
have found ourselves saying this: " iVell, there was an inflow
of capital last year of œ_ 90m, per, private investment, or œ lO00m.
It would be unreasonable to suppose that so high a figure could
be maintained; we'd better be a little cautious on this, and
perhaps discount it a bit for next year". But it goes on growing;
it goes on growing in an almost fantastic way. Some of
its effects, of course, need watching; others are splendid.
But those of you who cast your despairing eye on the
Stock Exchan.; e reports occasionally will not have failed to
notice the terrific flurry on the market, the immense buying demand,
very largely brought about by an inflow of money seeking
investment in Australia. And they are not seeking investment,
whether it is in factories or in scrip, they are not seeking investment
in Australia just for the purpose of making a qtdck
profit and going away with it: the great beauty of the overwhelming
bulk o f this investment in Australia is that it has
gone into g& reat enterprises, I giving a massive employment to Australia,
using the subsidiary industries to the fullest possible
extent, and, to a very large extent, ploughing their profits
back into furthe-r Australian development. I tell you that all
this change in the financial complexion of Australia means quite
clearly that in the lifetime of most of us inthis room, we will
see substantial experts of manufactured goods to an extent that
vie hadn't dre3amed of a few years ago. The whole face of this
country is being changed. Now, we would, of course be fools if
we claimed that we did it, because we didn't. Perhaps the wisest
way to put it is this: that we had enough brains not to prevent
it from being done; we had eneugh intelligence to create the
political climate in which it could be done, and I may say that
all of these people, from wherever they come, with their money,
with their skill, with their mate rial, to invest in the development
of Australia, will say that the first thing they like about
Australia is that it has stability of Govurnment and appears to
have got rid of Socialist ideas, Ten years ago, as you know,
the State Governments were, overwhelmingly, in the terms of
numbers, Labour. Today we look around and vie find that that
position is completely reversed. People overseas don't fail to
notice this thing; people overseas have not failed to notice
that after 9 years of continuous office we were given a record
majority. They read into this, and very proporly, a determination
on the part of the people of Australia to maintain sensible
policies, encouraging private e) nterprise, and not discoura
gin g it, with all the stability that they require and all
the confidence in the future for which they had hoped. Now,
Sir, these recommendations and facts are, I think, tremendously
important; they are much more important than any catch-penny
policy that our opponents may be able to put forward.
In the second place in the overall economy of Australia
we see the position: we've had our shifts and changes of fortune,
but we have not had shifts and changes of policy; we've
had some ups and downs but, by and large, over the last ten
years the economic growth of Australia has been immense. Nobody
looking around it could deny it. It is always interesting to me
to encounter, for example the Commonwealth Parliamentary Associa
-tion representatives uho were here the other day; people from
countries and being politicians, most experiencod in the art
of criticism; not disposed to say that something is very good
without some thought. And I think that every one of the representatives
who came hero from 50 or 60 different Parliaments and
who looked around Australia on a splendid journey which was
made and on which they saw many things, not one of them failed
to be impressed by the remarkable growth of the country, and
the opening up of an even more remarkable future. When I say
something about " a remarkable future" I think that it is worth
recalling that very largely because of the vast increase in expenditure
on research my oi. m Government has increased the
amount going to C. S. I. RoO. quite spectacularly over this period
of time. The increasing interest in research on the part of
private enterprise, the encouragement to research by some of the
great primary industries who have levied themselves for this
ppurpose and the work of people like the Bureau of Mineral Resources,
the Commonwe_-alth body which has done almost fabulous
work, as a result of allthese things, and a dozen others, our
old conception of Australia is disappearing. You know, when I
was a young man some wise man sitting in a University study somewhere,
came to the conclusion and proved it by irrefutable
logic that the population of Australia could never be more than
millions because there was no hope for the dead heart of
Australia, no hope of bringing into cultivation land which did
not have adequate rainfall and so on, and even more recently,
as I've told you before, just before the lar this last War
we were told by most reputable experts that the optimum population
that would be reached in Australia was 7 million and we
wouldn't reach that until 1975. That was the climate of mind.
Does anybody believe such nonsense today? When we see soil
being brought under fruitful cultivation which was regarded as
hopeless once; when we find mineral resources being opened
that nobody ever dreamed of, with a broad hint in all the circumstances
that we are almost just at the beginning of mineral
development, does anybody believe these gloomy prophecies when
he sees the work done by the use of trace elements and the like
to bring into proper and rich pastoral production land on
which stock would once fade away. This all appears to the
imagination; this is something of which we must be proud, as
Australians, and which should give us the greatest feeling of
assurance that we will maintain the interests of other people.
I hope we will; that we won't push them back, because I believe
that Australia is roughly at the same period in her history with
a population of 10 million as the United States of America was
in its time, and every prominent American, every highly responsible
American entrepreneur in whatever field, and I know that
some of my State colleagues can confirm this, everyone of them
who has a look at Australia is bound to say before he finishes:
" You know this isjust like the period in American history when
our expansion was beginning and the whole world seemed open to
us" Now the third thing, looking back, is our industrial
position. We have, by and large, over this period of 10 years
had substantially full employment. Je have som times had overfull
employment; we've sometimes had a little spatter of unemployment
but we've never had anything that in any way resembles
the pro-war circumstances in the industrial field. And one
would have expected that with plenty of jobs to be got we might
have expected a good deal of industrial trouble because it is
easier to go on strike to put it bluntly if there are other
jobs around the corner, than it is to go on strike when jobs are
short. And so the cynics, particularly the cynics on the other
side said: " Ah! you see; This Government is -oing to encoun-
4.
ter trouble. The only people who can handle, who can understand,
who can be understood by the Trades Unionists, is the Labour
Party". What nonsense it's turned out to be. I venture to
say that the relations between Government and Trade Union movements
have never been better than in the last ten years. That,
indeed, is why so many Trade Unionists vote for us: our relations
have never been better. And as for the relations between
the great body of Trade Unionists and the community, so far as
that is concerned mark the fact that the loss of work by industrial
trouble is fantastically small. Year by year, year by
year, we've gone on recording fresh records in the small number
of days lost. In point of fact, our present and recent experience
has been such that less time and work have been lost by
industrial trouble than would be occasioned by the granting of
a half-day's holiday in Australia. Of course lots of people
from overseas, years ago, used to say: " Well, Australia, it's
got very tough trade unions; it's always having strikes. We
read about them in the cables strikes and industrial disputes
of all kinds. They even have a special provision in their
Constitution about Industrial disputes. What a land of disputation
it must be." They have only to come here; they have only
to become interested in this country, to get hold of the facts
and they discover that the very reverse is true and in that
field I venture to say that we may claim some credit for the
state of affairs which I have referred to.
And then, finally, looking outside our own country, at
International affairs. You know, this notion one hears, sometimes
in one's own party, or in one's own party organization,
that we have been pretty lucky, that we are rather, on the whole.
inert, and that we suffer from that blessed word " complacency"
in large doses, I get so tired of hearing that kind of thing because
people who say it must have had their eyes closed to
what has been going on, not years but continuously going on
at the present time.
I've said something about some aspects of it but look
at the International picture. Where were we ten years ago before
this inert Government came into power in the Commonwealth?
Where were we internationally? oe had succeeded in quarrelling
with the United States of America; we had been making such
loud noises of self-assertion that people occasionally wondered
what side we were on, on the great issues of the world, and
today, after a continuous processI venture to say that our
status, not only in the British Commonwealth, but in the whlole
world was never as high; that we have achieved a reputation
for responsibility and good sense and co-operation. Certainly
our standing with the United States on the one side and Great
Britain on the other was never more intimate. I have the great
privilege as the Prime Minister to be in frequent communication
of a personal kind with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
and in less frequent communication of a personal kind with the
President of the United States of America. Je can communicato
with each other as friends. Je are of unquestioned standing
in the free world and in respect of our own problems in the
South east of Asia, in the south-west Pacific, which are problems
which, under Communist pressure, might become more and
more acute, without us being able to restrain them, in relation
to. this area, we have taken an active and successful part in
promoting two great International Agreements one the ANZUS
Agreement with the United States of America and New Zealand
and ourselves, a negotiation in which we played a most loading
part and the South-East Asian Treaty Organization in which,
again, the United States is involved, and, of course, Great
Britin and ourselves and Now Zealand and two or three of the
Souti East Asian countries.
That Agreement itself was a notable achievement in
diplomacy and just to show that all this isn't past history and
that we have given up the ghost and have no more ideas to pro-
4 b -duce I hope you have all noticed that in these discussions in
Washington in relation to Antarctica, the chief promotion of
ideas and of an Agreement betwken the Nations has come from
Australia through my colleague Mr. Casey. And in the result
we are going to see an International sot of affairs in Antarctica
which will achieve much good results two things in particular;
one, I wont say the demilitarization of Antarctica because
it hasn't been militarised, but an Agreement that it
shall not be used for military purposes. That would have seemed
silly, wouldn't it, once, until they began to develop rockets
and guided missiles and sputniks and the like; very important
today. And in the second place, the combination of the resources
of nations for the exploitation of scientific knowledge
or, indeed, of scientific matter of any kind in the Antarctic
area and that again is of tremendous importance to us.
Even meteorologically, it would be a wonderful thing if we
could have access to all the scientific meteorological knowledge
gathered by other nations to have a foot-hold in the Antarctic
so that we might pool the results, it would improve our own
poor knowledge of our weather in Australia out of all recognition.
So, Sir, things go on, but as we are getting towards
the end of our tenth year I thought that it might be an opportunity
for saying something to all our friends here today
those iho are the labourers in the field in the Liberal cause
something of the pride that I know you feel and that I know I
feel in what has been going on and something of the complete
confidence that eo have that so long as we maintain the steady
course, the strong-minded ideas that we have had in the past,
then nothing can prevent Austrqlia from flourishing and becoming
great. Sir, I declare the Conference open.