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FINAL BROADCAST: BROADCAST BY THE PRIME MINISTER THE RT.
HON. SIR ROBERT MENZIES, OVER NATIONAL
STATIONS AT 7.15 P. M. ON WEDNESDAY, 27th
NOVEMBER, 1963.
This campaign began with contests in the fields
of foreign affairs and defence, contests which continue in full
vigour and political significance. We then moved into domestic
problems particularly housing and education about which
I will say something. But, quite late in the campaign, Mr. Calwell has
produced a brand-new item of policy, of tremendous importance.
Labour, if elected, will abolish preferential voting for the
House of Representatives, a voting system which has operated
in Australia for 4+ 5 years, unchallenged by either Party, Its
whole purpose is to ensure that no man may be elected a Member
if most of his electors don't want him. Take a simple example:
Suppose there is a country seat which is being contested by
Labour, Liberal and Country Party candidates. Both Liberal and
Country Party candidates support the Government. The real
question is: " Which of the two Government parties should win
a clearly Government seat? Let the people decide,"
Now, under preferential voting, suppose the count
of first preferences showed Labour 18,000
Liberal 16,000
Country Party 11,000
The second preferences of the Country Party candidate, if they
went only 80 per cent. to the Liberal and 20 per cent. to Labour,
would produce a final count of
Liberal 24+, 800
Labour 20,200
This would be a proper result, since clearly most voters did not
want Labour. Mr. Calwell now promises to abolish this voting
system by reverting to " first past the post". This would mean
that Labour would win the seat with 18,000 votes out of 1+ 5100.
I hope you will clearly understand what Mr, Calwell
is after. He would destroy all minority parties, such as the
DLP and other groups, by making their votes virtually votes for
Labour. In short, if Labour wins this election, it will
" rig" the voting system so as to make Labour undefeatable for a
long time. There are curious aspects of this matter, It was
Mr. Calwell in the Chifley Government, who was the architect
of the new genate voting system proportional representation.
Up to that time, Senate voting was " first pest the post", which
left minorities in a State with no representation at all.
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Mr. Calwell proposes to keep the new Senate system, since in
every State it assures Tabour of some Senators. He is all for
proportional representation to keep control, or near-control, of
the Senate, and now all for " first past the post" for the House
of Representatives to keep control of that House,
But the matter does not end there. Labour wants
" first past the post" for the House of Representatives. But
it chooses its own candidates for Parliament by the preferential
voting systemi And how does it choose its Parliamentary leader and
the members of its Parliamentary Exeoutive? By exhaustive ballotnot
by " first past the post". Let's say that there are
Labour Senators and Members meeting to choose a leader. And
let's suppose that four offer themselves for election. On the
first vote, A gets 30 votes, B 25 votes, C 20 votes and D 5 votes.
So the chairman of the meeting strikes out D, and another vote is
taken, and so on until somebody has 41 votes, or an absolute
majority. As you will see, the purpose is the same as in
preferential voting. Yet, under the system Mr. Calwell now
advocates for the House of Representatives, A would instantly
win, with 30 votes out of 801
I urge you to beware of this recently-disclosed
Labour Policy. It is designed to destroy minorities and to
give Labour perpetual power. And who will exercise Lhis power?
Not the people you send to Parliament, but the outside Executive,
the 36 men who owe you no responsibility at all, but whose
decisions and orders a Calwell government would be bound implicitly
to obeyl Our housing and education programmes, to which I made
a brief reference earlier have been attracting great attention
among younger voters, This has been manifest in -each State and
at all my meetings, These voters acknowledge generously what
we have achieved in both fields; but they are looking forward to
marriage, to home building, to children and to the education of
' those children to be good citizens, good builders of a growing
nation. In effect, what they are saying to us is " What can you
do to help us to help ourselves and our children and the nation?"
Now, this is no selfish attitude. It is a constructive and
imaginative attitude. We have tried to meet it in our policy.
Thus our scheme for subsidising a saved deposit on a home at the
rate of V1 for œ 3 for married people in the " under 35 age group"
with a maximum subsidy ( that is, a gift not repayable) of œ E250,
will give great encouragement to those who ineed it at the right
time and in the right way. For most ambitious young miarried
couples want to have a hone of their own. This indeed is the
ideal of genuinely civilised democracy. The ownership of a home
is the kind of security which naturally attracts them because it
represents a measure of independence. I understand the Opposition
now questions the validity of our proposal. Mr. Calwell will be
surprised to see how valid it is.
Similarly, in our new education proposals, we have
been looking in a practical w33 to the future. The parents of
families want their children to have the best education they can
afford. They want this education to enable their child to advance
in life, in character, in skill and in reward. The best parents,
I have no doubt, want their children to be trained to be good
citizens and good contributors to the advancement of the nation.
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Recognising this, We have put forward three
Completely new propositions.
The first concerns the encouraging of secondary
School students to put in some extra time on their secondary
studies SO that they may be better qualified thereafter, and
the encouraging of their parents to persuade themi to taeti
extra time. This is frequently a matter of great faily
difficulty. To facilitate extra training for bright boys and
girls at secondary schools we will award each year 10 000
scholarships, tenable for Lhe two later years at seconaary
schools; each scholarship will be worth up to œ-100 a year for
fees and books, and œ 100 a year for maintenance. Secondary
schools will include those which are public and those which are
independent. Second, the provision of 2 ,500 technici1 school
scholarships will be made on the samae terms and for similar
purposes. The demand in Australia for-technically skilled
people is growing, Indeed, the supply of competent technicians
very frequently deteroines the extent to which any enterprise
can employ unskilled labour. To assist in this field, we are
proposing to find each year a non-repayable grant of œ C5M. a
year to the States for the building and equipment of technical
school facilities, Third, it is essential that provision for science
teaching in the secondary schools should be modern and adequate
if we are to draw from -them into the universities and into
post-graduate and research work the scientists and technologists
we will increasingly need, We are therefore proposing to
distribute fœ 5M. a year among secondary schools, again without
discrimination, for the building and equipment of science
laboratories and, in this way, the encouragement of science
teaching. It has been clearly observed by large audiences of
younger electors whora I have addressed that these practical
proposals, well-considered, not extravagant but most valuable,
will open up new avenues in life for many thousands of younger
people who might otherwise fail to enter them.
Finally, I go back to wihere I began to foreign
affairs and defence to the vital matter of national security,
without which no domestic progress can be achieved. When you
recall how much the present Government has strengthened our
alliances on a basis of co-operation, diplomatically and
militarily for the common security against Communist aggression,
do you really feel tempted to entrust our relations with the
United Kingdom, the United States, and our other friends, to
the left-wingers and the compromisers who make up the great
majority of ILabourts non-elected Parliament? It is because
we think that such dangerous nonsense will never be entertained
by a majority of our Australian people that we ask you with
confidence for a sweeping victory on Saturday.