OPENING OF THE HEAD OFFICE OF TE NATIONAL MUTUAL
LIFE ASSOCIATION, COLLINS STRELT, MELJOURNE. JST MARCH.. 1965
Speech by the Pri Me zl
Sir Robert It gives me very great pleasure indeed to be here
and to be here under the chairmanship of such an old and valued
friend as yourself. I was provided with these brochures myself and,
unlike most of you, I read them closely. ( Laughter)
Otherwise I would, this afternoon be entirely bereft of
facts. But it was in August of 1 g 69 that this Society began,
the first mutual life assurance society in Victoria, and it
was established at the corner, so I'm given to believe, of
Collins and Market Street better known later on as the corner
of the old destern Market and I'm bound to admit and I
have to be very careful about what I admit I'm bound to
admit that these things have changed.
I look across the road and expect vainly to see
Scotts Hotel where I will have all you Sassenachs know, they
made the best haggis in the world. ( Laughter) Instead of
that there is a rather melancholy sort of......( Laughter)
not at all reminiscent of the old roistering days. And as
I came in this afternoon I sniffed to see vihether some of
the lovely rich odours of the old wine cellars might have
survived but nothing survives the modern builder. Gone are
the wine cellars; gone is all the mess that used to be down
below in the Western Markets and up comes a magnificent
building. And, really, one can't complain because whatever
else might have been said about the old Western Market, I
don't think it added very much to the beauty of Melbourne
although it was situated in one of the most historic localities
in this city. And so here we are watching change, development,
particularly this end of Melbourne a beautiful development
in what in spite of the critics, I will always maintain is
a beautiful city and will continue to be one so long as the
architects permit it to be. ( Laughter)
Now, Sir, the growth since 1869, the growth
beginning before that in Sydney, the growth in life assurance
has been one of the most remarkable features of modern life.
In the last ten years, the total assets of life companies in
Australia has increased two and a half times over in ten years.
Personal savings you will forgive me, won't you, for a few
of these figures but I got them from the Treasury and I must
use them personal savings through iremiums on life policies
and so on represent twenty-five per cent. of the total personal
savings of the people of Australia, and ten years ago, they
represented fifteen percent. This is a phenomenal growth and
I will say a fewr words in a moment to indicate w1V I think
it is not only phenomenal but valuable beyond words. The
excess of premiums over claims and expenses, so I'm told now,
runs at the rate of about œ 100M per annum.
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Now, I must say I'm a great believer in life assurance.
It is the only form of saving that was ever effective with me
( Laughter) because it was compulsory. You know, you had to say
to yourself, " WJell 11whatever happens I must keep up my life
assurance premiums and so we do, then with the good management
of those responsible for looking after our little savings, they
begin to increase, They have bonus additions. You find yourself
sitting down and saying, " W'hat am I insured for now?" and although
it is not enough, itis a lot more than occasionally I've been
expecting to know. Compulsory saving is a wonderful exercise
in self-discipline anid that's tremendously important, 1@ dies
and gentlemen, in a country which needs more and more capital
if its growth over the next ten years is to match the growth
that I've hinted at over the last ten.
There's a chronic problem all Prime Ministers have
to encounter it, all Treasurers have to encounter it, a chronic
problem of reconciling growth with monetary stability; growth
without an undue flusii of inflation; growth under circumistances
which will encourage people to save knowing that their sc-! vings
will not be eroded, and at the same time enables the country
to press on with all the development that it needs with a rising
population and rising responsibilities in the world. This is
a chronic problem, and, Sir, all I want to say is that it is
one towiards the solution of which I believe that the great life
offices are making a contribution, a remarkable contribution, and
I think they are making their contribution I don't want to be
tedious about this matter I think they are making it in three
ways. Somebody told me only the other day that as I made
three points, I must be a Presbyterian. I pleaded guilty.
( Laughter) In the first place, I think that the great life
offices are doing thiis by encouraging savings for long-term
purposes. They also encourage a consciousness of the dangers
of inflation. There are some people who believe in inflation.
There are some people who have a vested interest in inflation.
There are some who hear about it as a wrord without completely
understanding what it may mean, but in the long run, we can't
afford to have the value of savings cut away by serious
depreciation in the purchasing power of money. And with all
the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of policyholders
we have in Australia, we have a great body of people
who understand this matter and w. 1hose vested interest, if they
heve one is a vested interest in favour of monetary stability.
That, I t~ hink, has been a very great contribution to tie solution
of this problem. Then in the second place, as Sir Robert indicoted
very briefly, by their investment policies they encourage and
help private and national investment and growth. It is not so
many years now since I appeared in a case in court it can't
bo more than fifteen or twenty to appear for the National
Ilutual for a modest fee ( Laughter), to get approval under a
new statute which had come into existence for an alteration in
their Memorandum of Association in order that they might widen
the field of their investment. This is going back some time.
And wo all know! today, don't we how varied the field
of investment is primary industry, seconlary industry,
developmental schemes, housing a great range of investment,
some in the public sector because public demands for investable
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funds are great and growing; some in the private sector an
immense variety, a variety of investments which I imagine the
founder of this society would have regarded as lax and dargerous
in 1869, and in effect have been tremendous. The effects have
been that the funds brought in from policy-holders have served
as a fertilising force all round Australia, and have I think, 1
made a tremendous contribution both to private investment,
private success and to public investment and to national growth.
Then there is a third aspect of the Societyls which
I hope I might be allowed to mention. They are strong. You
take this one we are particularly concerned with today. The
mere quotation of figures that Sir Robert has given us indicates
its tremendous strength and solidity. And because the life
offices have exhibited strength and solidity, they have encouraged
in all of our minds the feeling of confidence in the future.
There is nothing that engenders confidence half so much as
strength solidity, security. Nothing that destroys confidence
so quickly as a feeling that the building is shaking and may
collapse. And the strength of the life offices today, their
solidity, their absolutely invulnerable solvency, this has been
a powerful contributor to confidence, and that is a very very
great factor which perhaps deserves another minute or tw-o before
I conclude, It is a very great factor because if capital and
enterprise and people are to be attracted to Australia, then
they must have confidence in us. This is something that we
need to have in our mainds much more than we do. The inflow of
people, the inflow of money, the inflow of skills and enterprise,
these are not accidental. They wouldntt happen if we were
a community without confidence in ourselves, if we were a
community that gave every symptom of being a shaky community,
insecure, not trusting ourselves and therefore not to be trusted.
These great movements will not happen if we lack confidence in
ourselves and that is why the contribution of the life offices
to the building up of confidence in the way that I have described
is Itts an invisible item, if you like, Itts an
invisible item but a very real one, a very great factor in the
development of our country.
And therefore, Sir, to conclude, I just want to say
this, in declaring this centre open, I just want to say that
wre are celebrating for the reasons that I mentioned, a mutuality
of interests in the service of the nation and therefore the
name National ivutual, embracing as it does both of those ideas,
is a very happy one and well befits a very happy occasion.
I have great pleasure in declaring the centre open.