SPE2CH BY 2HE FRIYE I4ISTER T. HON. RG.
ITTHE 7OUOS0 ? P1-LSNT. TIVES
THJURSD-Y. lbT M . RC, 1962
I think I shiuld like to begin by cnplirenting the
honourable member for Phillip ( Mr. Einfeld) who has just sat
down, n his maiden speech. He will not be surprised to find
that there are some passages in it with -hich I do not agree,
but I did think that he shuld be conplirented on the way in
which he put it.
This is a very important debato. It is a new Parliament
and it is a very narrowly divided Parlianont. Whatover
division occurs in this House will be a close division.
Thorefore, I propose to address myself to the first challenge
which has been very > roperly made by the Loeader of the
Opposition ( Mr. Calwoll) at an oarly stage, to the continued
existence of the Govcrnm. ent. I Ido not 4uarrel with that at all.
That is exactly the course that I uould ha ve taken nyself in his
place because it is of great nonent, not only to Parliament, but
to the people of ustralia that the broad position of the
Governmient in this Parliament should be determ ined at the
earliest possible nmoment.
Having said that, I ar. bound to confess that the
speech made by ny honourable friend, the Lead-r of the
Opposition and it was far-roaching and the amendment that
he has moved do not soon to mc to be entirely closely related.
In the course of his speech he contioned a few of the points in
the namendment but certainly not all of then. I do not conplain
about that because within the limits of any decent time
allowable in Parliament it is not possible to cover too wide a
field. But the difference between the speech and the amnendrmnt.
was, I thought, worthy ) f passing comrment, as we say
occasionally in this H. use One night aluost have thought that
they had been 2Grafted by different people.
In what I have to say to: night I propose to deal with
matters of substance or, at any rato, with a sufficient number
of matters of substanco to fit within the reasonable c-npass of
one speech. I begin by saying that wo are not here, I imagine,
to fight the last election. I have had . n enormous number of
elections in Uy time. and I have swanted up and own the
country in the course of thea. Ihen they are over I do not want
to have to do thom agDain. I hope that I nay be forgiven this
rather ch! arling ihuman woaknoss. lle are net here to fight the
last eloction, That has booeen fought and there has been a
sensational result, 1whether you look at it either from the
Gvornment point of view or the Opposition point of view. But
what we are here to detormine is whether in this now Parliament,
on the Govern o-r-General's Speooch and our recently mnnounced
economic measures, wre deserve the censure of this H-uso. It is
the censure of this House that is being sought, not a rahash of
a general election. On that kind of issue the onus is on the
Opposition, and th. o attack is properly maeo by the Leader of the
Opposition. As I will demo: nstrate ' before I conculc, he has not
made up his nr. ind as to the . r. un1s of his attach: or the
principles u; o-n which he attacks. Everything that he said in
the course of his sreech here I iwant to pay tribute to his
durability because he has said something , very day since polling
day can be undcrst')-d nly if it is roLbored I comle to
this right away that he is deeply influencod by his rich and
powercrful friends in the well-nmown Fairfax-Hend rs on-Calwoll
axis. It is rather an agreablo tli. ought that the prince of
s:) cialists, even though he has voluntarily abdicated that
position for three years, should now find h-' mself in such sweet
communii on with the rich, All-the old battles that he has had
have been forgotten temporarily.
My friend and colleague, the honourable ue. bor for
Moreton ( Mr. Killen) mrde some rofurence to this rather
unkind, I thought, but rmuch enjoyed oy people here. But all
those old battles are now forgotten. I would almost say to my
colleague " Pray do not disturb the p) ace; these are forgotten".
" The Old Curi.. sity Shop" and Charles Dickens are forgotten,
Indeed, " The Old Curiosity Shop" with its iimn.. rtal description
of Mr. Quilp has been iineffect, burned, by the comnJon han:; an.
Dear Arthur and Dear Rupert now see each other in a kindlier
light. All passion is spent. There is a new unity ticket.
They are united by the contemplation of a cormmon enemy. Of
course it is in that capacity, as ell as in the trifling
capacity of being the Prinm Minister, that I ad ross the House
tonight. The process of roadjustmrent has had its painful non: ents
but it has been concluded, I an happy to record, in a
gentlemanly way. On their part, the " Sydney Morning Herald"
masters publicly co2.--itted thensolvos to the view that though
being professed anti-sDcialists, they would sooner support a
true blue socialist , gover: enn t than the Liberal Governrent which
they accused of some socialist practices. This is an exercise
in logic which, I an sure, will engage the study of people in
the philosophy schools of the universities for years to come.
At a certain stage some one I think it was one of my
colleagues very rudely said that there Must hcve been some
contract between the socialist leader and the capitalist
" Sydney Morning Herald". They rejected this. The " Sydney
Morning Herald" iasters even went to the dangerous length of
writing a special article on their political principles and
that had all the charm of novelty. In the course of this
article I copied their very words which is what they seldom
do with me they said
" There could be no contract with Labour unless the " Herald"
that is the " Sydney Morning Herald", the Labour paper
" were prepared to subscribe to the platfor-m of the Labour
Party but this, as overy one must know, is out of the
question".
This was a stateent of profundity and piety, was it not. " For
us to subscribe to the policy of the Labour Party is out of the
question". Of course, it takes two to make a bargain. When I
read that statement I recalled at once that after all the
Leader of the Opposition had done his part because in his policy
speech he had said that if elected he would forget all about the
socialist objective the policy of the Labour Party for three
years. His very words were
" We pronise not to raise the question of nationalisation
during the lifetine of the Twentyfourth Parliaent".
I believe I am right in saying that this is the Twentyfourth
Parliament. So there we are. The " Herald" said, " We could
never support Labour because we object to its policy." Pray
forget itdear boy, because we will forget about the policy for
three years. On this happy note of harmony the business went
on. A kind of entente cordialo was then established and the
Government, having suffered heavy losses at the election, as I
publicly, freely and obviously confessed, ny distinguished
friends, the Leader of the Opposition becane excited, and made
strange statements daily.
On the economic question which hy ban selected for this
censure amondhent there is a most curious sequence of events to
which I want to direct the attention of the Parliament. On 7th
February this year I issued a statement containing the Cabinet's
decisions on a variety of matters to which I shall refer later
in detail payments to the States in the form of grants which
are not repayable; borrowing by somi Government and local
government bodies; unemployment benefits; income tax rebates;
motor vehicle sales tax; war service hones loans; housing
loans by savings banks; Commoiw ealth works; investment
allowances; quantitative restriction of imports and Development
Bank capital. This was a wide range of matters on which I made
the statement arising from very close Cabinet discussion after a
long series ofconferences with properly interested people in
various sections of Australia. The first comment made by my
friend he rushed in at once to make it was that the
Government's announcement disclosed no basic change in policy.
I ask honourable members to remember this. There is no
basic change in policy, and this gets the headlines. It is a
quick commaent; but a day later no doubt enriched by alvice in
the appropriate quarter, he switched his grounds. He said that
we had reversed our policy. That is a pretty good performance,
is it not, for a man to say one day that it is the samo policy
and in reference to the same sto. tcment, to say 24 hours later
that you have reversed the policy? He said we had now adopted
his policy, and indeed my jesting friend the honourable member
for Grayndler ( Mr. Daly) repeatod this and somebody else that I
heard this afternoon repeated it that we have stolen Labour's
policy. 3ut so that he should not go too far in that direction
he said we had done it too late. That was the second edition.
There was the authorised version, and the revised version and
this must be the new one, because on Tuesday last in this
Parliament he turned around again and set out to prove not that
we had stolen Labour's policy but that our proposals were
worthless. It is a little bit hard on his followers, mixed as
they be, to tell them that Labour's policy is worthless.
Really, this comes a little hard, does it not? I sympathized
with my friends opposite when he said it " Our proposals are
worthless" He is in a dilemma, of course, which is no novel
experience. He cannot say that we have adopted his policy
because he has condemned every proposition put forward in my
stateuent of 27th February with wihich he dealt in the course of
his speech. If honourable members will just check for
themselves they will see how completely right that is. I will
illustrate it.
He attacked our tax cut. He will not have it. He says
it is loaded in favour of the rich. So that is wrong. That is
not the Labour policy. He finds the added money for the States
and for local governr-ent and semi-governmental bodies a total
of œ 25m. in four months, grossly inadequate. And unlike the
Premiers who came here to receive it he doubts and I again
quote his words " Whether there will be any increase in the
rate of spending on public works at all." Every Premier who came
here, of whatever party, was able to say " This will enable us to
put a lot of things into operation and give a lot of employment".
But the honourable . entleman, the Loader of the Opposition, whose
profession it is to live on unemployment, gloomily says that it
will not make any difference at all.
Then we turn to the investment allowances, I hope that
the manufacturers of Australia wore paying proper attention to
what he said last Tuesday, because he rejects the investment
allowance. On what grounds? Because it is a hand-out his
very words to the large ranufacturers whose employees
apparently do not matter. This is a hand-out to the large
manufacturers. An investment allowrre, a novelty in Australia
designed to enable manufacturers to re-equip themselves on modern
lines and thereby keep down their unit costs and go into the
competitive world. This is thrown out. It is just a hand-out
to the large manufacturers. Ho found that our added provision
for unemployment benefits, particularly for the family nan, was
miserable, . although I take leave to recall to the memory of all
people concerned that this is one matter about which he said
exactly nothing in his policy speech. Nothing so we did not
steal that from hir, but we did it, and it is miserable.
He attacked the quota restrictions, or quantitative
restrictions for sections of industry particularly affected in
their oeployent by imports, as proofs of sectional pressure by
big conpanies. References have boon made tine after time by all
the people who cane to see us, and by many honourable members,
to the particular problens of the timber industry or sections of
the textile industry, or whatever it night be. Everybody is
familiar with the short list of industries particularly
affected, and when we propose to have a scheme which will enable
a prompt decision to be made a holding decision which will
affect these industries, this is rejected and despised by the
Leader of the Opposition and the Labour Party as a mere
concession to sectional pressure by big companies. I wonder how
many Labour iembers in this House genuinely subscribe to that.
ind then, to take the only other example that I have
time to mention, he says we are leaving the motor vehicle
industry to flounder and lanuish. In the course of his whole
speech I was waiting for the authentic Calwell touch and this
was one of the few allowing this industry to flounder and
languish. Does he corplain about our decision already put into
operation about sales tax on motor vehicles? I would have
thought that at any rate he night have found something good to
be said about a policy which he began a month ago by saying we
had stolen from the Labour Party. But no; on this occasion, no
" floundering and languishing". The facts, over the next few
nonths, will demonstrate the absurdity of that cormiont, as I
have no doubt. This astonishing reversal of form would seem to me to
represent a blind and blundering Opposition guided by no
principle and uninforned by any understanding of the nation's
true economic problems and yet, interesting as I hope that
story is, that is not the whole story. Wo must look at what is
not in the c. endment. Since polling day the most vigorous and
filibustering efforts of his journalistic friends of the
" Sydney Morning Herald" group have been directed to attacking
what they are pleaed to call the " appeasement policies" of this
Government in relation to West Now Guinea and when they did this
fantastic thing the honourable the Leader of the Opposition took
the opportunity, as I will show, of joining in. Yet, Sir,
this natter, an appeasement policy, a policy con. 1orl: ed by the
Leader of the Opposition if by no other member aoit, finds no
mention in the no-confidence motion. These things, which were
the very Ark of the Covenant three weeks ago are now rejected.
They find no place in the ni-confidence amenonent, and that is
a very remarkable thing, because, let me remind the House and
the people, if the election had turned out differently the Labour
Party's foreign policy, as expressed by its loader, would now be
operating. Now our ne. arust neighbours, Dutch New Guinea and
Indonesia are there, and have been, of course, for many years
at variance over territorial claims the territorial clain to
the sovereignty of West Now Guinea. Je are not a party
principal in that matter but we are deeply interested as a
neighbour interested in the peace of this part of the world and
our position has been repeatedly stated over rany years.
J I do not want to weary the H-ouse unduly by repetition on this
matter but this policy this approach of ours has been
re-stated as recently as 12th January of this year by myself
after a full examination by the Government. In effect, we said
let me put it quite shortly that the dispute about West New
Guinea should be settled peacefully and not under threat or
duress; that we have been repeatedly assured by Indonesian
leaders that force would n. t be employed; that we have a right
to expect the honjuring of those assurances; and that, should
the Netherlands and Indonesia come to a free agreement a free
agreement we would respect that agreement; that we are
deeply attached to the attainment by under-developed peoples,
including those of West New Guinea, after adequate and helpful
preparation, of the right to choose their own future this is
the policy we are pursuing in Papua and the Australian Trust
Territory of new Guinea; that the policy that we apply in
Papua and New Guinea is based upon our great sense of mroral
responsibility for the welfare of the people to whom we stand
in a special relationship; that we are not a colonial power in
the old sense. We do not seek to exploit. Our aim is to create
and develop the capacity of independent self-government.
So far, Sir, it would be surprising to be told that the
Australian Labour Party disagrees with this. If we are to be
told that, let therm stand up before this debate ends and say it.
To take it further: Suppose and I take it no further
than to say " suppose" Indonesia made war on West New Guinea
and suppose the United Nations took no action, either because of
the veto in the Security Council or because the Assembly did not
have the requisite majority; and suppose it was not known
whether Great Britain and the United States would act
militarily against armed intervention by Indonesia. What should
Australia do? The answer was clear, I thought, in the statement
that I made on 12th January. I said three things and I just
sunmarize them. First, we will discharge our prime
responsibility for the security of Australia, its Territories
and its people; sec. ndly, in matters affecting West New Guinea
we will act in close consultation with the great free powers,
particularly Great Britain and the United States of America;
thirdly, we will constantly maintain in the United Nations and
with our particular friends, the basic principle that the
peaceful settlement of disputes is the central theme and the
supreme mission of the United Nations,
Does Labour quarrel with those riews? Does anybody on
the other side quarrel with those views?
No-, Sir, before Igo further I want to dispose of the
ludicrous and ignorant suggestion made by the " Sydney Morning
Herald" on 30th January and since theafaithfully repeated by
the Leader of the Opposition. It said
" The truth is
This is their idea of truth
" that no Australian initiative over New Guinea has ever
been pressed in the highest places of United States
Administration".
It is wonderful with what boldness people tal when they do not
know, because the facts are as they could have discovered by
the simplest of inquiries to confine myself to the last
twelve months and as honourable members know, this unhappy
business has gone on for years that scarcely a day has gone by
withoutcabled exchanges on those matters between the Department
of External Affairs in Canberra and the Australian Embassy in
Washington for discussion with the U,, S CG oev mrLet in Washington.
6,
Our Ambassador has had prolonged and close and specific
discussions on those matters at least six times in the last
twelve months with the Secretary of SlCte, Mr. Dean Risk. The
present Minister for External Affairs ( Sir Garfield Barwick) has
had discussions with the American Charge d'Affaires in Canberra
and I, myself, not to put too fine a point upon it had long
discussions on this matter with Proeident Kennedy himself and
with Mr. Rusk, Yet we are told that our vies have not boon put
forward. So, Sir, I come back to the Labour attitude. I had a
press interview on 21st December, It was a-tor the groat day,
as the boys will remember. I had that inter vi ew on 21st
December, 1961, in which I re-stated our Weot New Guinea policy
along the lines that I have just summarized to the 1ous On
the following day this is ging back a li-title in time the
Leader of the Opposition and I were both taken to task by this
war-like Sydney journal. Having made the usual rather
dyslogistic references to myself I hc e they will not misspell
that word this journal went on to say
" Mr. Calwell is just as unhelpful"
Oh dear! " All he can suggest, after much preaching against sin,
is that the question be settled in the U. N. If the U. N.
sends a force to intervene, he says, Australia ' should
provide its complement'".
Then the paper goes on, after that rath.; r agreeably sensible
remark and says
" What if the United Nations does not send a force?
This is the crucial question. He ignores it. So does
Mr. Menzies",
You see. If that means anything and one must not unduly
attribute sense to some of those blurbs it means that if the
United Nations failed to send a force to which Australia
contributes Australia must provide the force by itself. If it
does not mean that it is sillier than usual,
On 1st January, 1962 coming up to modern times now
the " Sydney Morning Herald" came back to the matter. It said
" What is required from the Government at this critical
time is something more. In the interests of peace, and of
future relations between Australia and Indonsia, the
Indonesian Government should be left in no doubt that
Australia is not prepared to stand idly by if President
Sookarno carries out his threats.
Now, Sir, may I interrupt myself to remind the House if I do not
trespass too much on the occasion that this great journal, aided
by my friend opposite, had duvoted a great deal of time last
year to telling me I was too , nxious to be friends with Great
Britain and the United States and that I ought to be
cultivating the Asian nations. Do honourable members recall
that? I think they do. Now, of course, they attack me because
I do not want to go to war with Asia. This is a very odd
reversal of form because they know if they know anything
that every mainland Asian country supports the Indonesian claim.
They know that,
On 4th January, 1962, the Loador of the Opposition, in
order to pour oil on the troubled waters, made a violent
personal attack on Presidont Soekarno, with side references to
Hitler and this and that. This did not improve our relations
with that country.
7.
Later came the great conversion. Saul on the road to
Damascus, if I may speak with all reverence, was not in it.
This was the great conversion. Disciplined by his newrspaper
backers, the Leader of the Opposition came out loud and clear.
On 10th February there was a groat front-page story in the
" Sydney Morning Herald", reproduced at s'ome more moder. atelength
in so. m other papers, headed
" Calwell Defines A. L. P. Policy on IKw Cluinea dispute"
I read the statement with great interest. I woke up. I said,
" Ha. This is it". I read it with surpise, W, ithout boasting,
I want to say that I have had the numbor of inn oriJ.. s t
calculated. There were 2,855 words in this -tat mient. ev-ery
one of which was in the journal. The newspaper report
commenced in this fashion on the front page.-
" In a dramatic statement today the Leader of the Federal
Opposition, Mr. Calwell, definod ' h ' I. abour Party's
attitude to the West New Guinea crisis, He said if
Indonesia seeks to deny the . rinciplos of the United
Nations Charter and to uso. fi ;. ce to create a potential
threat to Australia's secu-i i. y then I say with all due
regard to the gravity of the situation that the threat
must be faced".
What did that mean? It is a fair cuestion. I wanted to know
the answer. Therefore, naturally, I asked it in a public
statement. I said
" What does this mean?
" If it means that Australia should be ready and willing
to protect its own territories, ie, Australian New
Guinea and Papua, the answer is that I said so in plain
terms in my statement of Government policy on January
12th a statement which stands,
" If his statement moans that an Australian government
should convoy in relevant quarters its views against
aggression and in favour of self-determination the
answer is that the Governnmnt has done so on very many
occasionso...
" If Mr. Calwell's statement moans that without any
reg-rd to what might be the attitude or action of these
great powers, Australia should, in the event of armed
Indonesian aggression against Dutch New Guinea, declare
war against Indonesia, it is clearly crazy and
irresponsible".
Those were fair questins,, The answer to them, of course, is a
motion of no confidence in which the New Guinea issue does not
even receive a mention not a word. The " ship of wa' has sunk
with all hands. I should like to take the rest of my time in turning to
another aspect of this matter. I have dealt with what is not in
the motion, I want to say a few more words about what is in
the raotion, I said quite a bit about it earlier but I am now
coming back to it. I want to say something, quite briefly,
about the true nature of the Government's economic policy and
the reasons why changes of tactics are not to be taken as changs
of strategy. Our policies havo, over a long term of years,
produced notable results for Australia. Honourable members may
now feel themselves rather whipped up over this matter but may
I assure then that the people of Australia felt that they
wore notable results because, in 1951, 1951 1955 and 1958, they
8,
said so emphatically. I admit freely and agreeably that when
they said so in 1961 they did it with what Gilbert would have
called " modified rapture". I give you that,
We have stood and we stand for national growth and
economic stability. Our opponents appear to believe that you
can have one or the other, but not both. This is a dangerous
fallacy. I hope it will be understood by the people as a
dangerous fallacy. It may very well be necessary, under
special circumstances, to accept calculated risks for the sake
of growth. We have just been dealing with some of those
circumstances. But, as a continuing permanent policy,
stability can never be abandoned. Stability, Sir does not mean
and can never be allowed to mean, stagnation, Ntional and
industrial growth require imports of people to which eloquent
references were made by the honourable member for Phillip
( Mr. Einfeld) and imports of producers' goods. To achieve such
imports and to grow and these are both of immense importance
we must export. To export either prima y products or
manufactured goods we must prevent our costs from rising. The
Australian Country Party and the Liberal Party are the only
parties in the Federal Parliament which have shown and will
continue to show an awareness of the central problem of high
production costs-,
Our principles apply to both sides of industry. There
is no mystery about this. The maintenance of primary exports is
essential to our international solvency, yet they cannot be
maintained if costs rise faster than prices. The development of
manufactures is essential for population growth. But
manufacturing efficiency must go up and costs be kept down if
manufacturing is not to be a burden upon the farmer and push his
costs up.. This, in the siZplest possible terms, is the analysis
that we make of these matters.
Now, Sir that is why the present stability of the
consumer price in ex is so valuable. It has been referred to
before and I need not repeat it, but it is significant and
remarkable. Our broad economic strategy is, thorefore this:
To keep upward pressures on population by migration hat is,
population growth; to develop the resources of Australia as
speedily as possible that is, resources 6rowth; to encourage
productivity and efficiency in primary and secondary industry;
and to do these things in such a way as to restrain inflation,
maintain our balance of trade and payments and employ our people
and physical resources to the full, ' Jithin this strategy our
tactics, of course, must be flexible. Our recent announcements
illustrate this approach. I can do no more than take a few
examples because, already I have been longer than I intando to be.
Our 1960-61 policies, let us agree, bit too deeply into
manufacturing and, therefore, into employrment. To correct this
without re-creating inflationary boom conditions a point of
the greatest possible importance means had to be devised which
were temporary or non-recurring. For examplo, the non-repayable
loans that we have made to the States over the last four months
of this financial year amounting to have been nonrepayable
and non-recurring. There they are, They achieve
their object and we are all happy. They exhaust themselves and
leave us to discuss the next year in a normal fashion. So the
means d; vised had to be, where feasible, temporary or nonrecurring.
They also had to be capable of quickly providing
employment such as, for example, semi-governm-nt and local
government borrowings. Nobody came before us in the course of
our discussions without saying that that was one of the quickest
ways of getting people to work. As y-, u know, a great deal was
done on this matter at the meoting of the Australian Loan
Council.
9.
Then there we. a housing aid, particularly -where it could
be put to work quickly, as we . rere assured by the States could
and would be done. Then there were other means to be devised.
Take the third category those likely to encourage spending at
the consumer end, thus, of course, aiding both production and
confidence. An example of that is the income tax rebate for
1961-62. Honourable members will see how all these things are
related to a specific problem not an unlimited problem but a
specific and limited problem in order to get rid of some byproducts
without creating new problems.
Another category was calculated to aid the production
and efficiency of manufacturers and, therefore, their capacity
to employ people, without resorting to general import licensing,
which I would think few people would want to see come back with
all its arbitrary and bureaucratic characteristics. For that
reason, we put forward though the Leader of the Opposition
does not like it a specific proposal that a very highly
respected special consultant should, after inquiry and report,
recommend quota restrictions in special cases and not for an
unlimited period of time.
The other aspect of the same point is investment
allowances. I have said something about this aspect. Does
anybody in Australia with a sense of responsibility for the
future suppose that we could go on with a great immigration
programme, building up our population and manufacturing
industries, unless we could find our place with manufactured
goods in the markets of the world? How do you suppose we are
going to find our place in the markets of the world if our cost
level is non-competitive? How do you make the cost level
competitive? You do so by taking every conceivable opportunity
to facilitate the re-equipment of factories with the most
modern plant; and investment allowances are specifically and
powerfully designed for this purpose. On the other side of
industry that is too frequently forgotten by those who are not
interested in costs and I refer to the primary industries
we look for measures calculatod to aid rural development and
production. That is : rhy we have put forward in this categoiy
of provisions the express provision for increased capital for
the Development Bank.
Each of these propositions and examples comes
squarely within our economic strategy. There is no
contradiction and there is no abandonment. J'e all seek of
course, to learn from our experience unless we are fools, and
to make adjustments when and where they are needed, ie should
properly stand condemned if we stood flat-footed, not responsive
to new circumstances or losing sight of the great objective that
we keep constantly before us the full and effective use of all
our resources in a growing nation.