EMBARGO NOT FOR R'ELEASE BEFORE 7.15 PM
Senate Election 1967 Q.
NATIONAL BROADCAST BY THE PRIME MINISTER 4' ORAHi
( MR HAROLD HOLT,
Friday, 17th November, 1967
( Following Is the text of a broadcast to be made by the Prime Mini ster, Mr
Holt, over the ABC's network at 7. 15 pm. ( EST) this evening)~
My colleagues and I don't conduct the business of this country
as though It were a popularity contest. We deal in a responsible way with
the problems and opportunities that come to us,* We need your support, of
course, if we are to govern.
You are not likely to take seriously the curious propaganda.
line pit forward by the Leader of the Labor Party, that this magnificent
country of ours is failing to male good progress. But perhaps we ought to
get the record straight. In the few minutes of this broadcast, I cannot give
you a complete story about the domestic achievements of my own Governmient
and the earlier Governments with which I have been associated. But I can
give you a few highlights.
Consider national health. The aim of our National Health
Scheme is to provide every citizen with a high level of medical and hospital
services and without financial hardship. Commonwealth money, in
increasing amounts, makes possible our hospital benefits, our medical
benefits, and the pensioner medical services and pharmaceutical benefits.
We estimate that for this financial year, we shall spend on the nation's
health more than $ 270 million. In the last full year of a Labor Government,
slightly more than $ 12 million was spent on health.
Turn to our record on education. Before we came to government,
Commonwealth expenditure on education was small, because education was
particularly regarded as a State responsibility. It still is, but we have
taken the lead in many new ventures in the education field. I can only
s u min arise them here. We Instituted a system of university grants to
the States and we established the Australian Universities Commission.
We greatly expanded the system of Commonwealth scholarships. In
partnership with the States, we have embarked on a major programme to
establish colleges of advanced education. We have given grants to the
States for science laboratories in government and independent schools.
This is only a sketchy outline of a programme on education
which we see as a continuing responsibility.
It was a Government of which I was a member which first
introduced child endowment into Australia. I had the honour of bringing
the bill before the House of Representatives. Endowment is, we are glad
to report, now a large item in our yearly Budget. / 12
-2-
At the other end of the scale, we can point to an impressive
record in our provision to meet the needs of the aged. Apart from pensions,
adequate housing for the aged has been a special innovation in our period
of government. These, I repeat, are only pointers to the Government record.
But they are timely when our opponents paint such a gloomy picture of the
state of the nation. However dreary statistics might be, they give the lie
to the pessimists. They show, for example, that a bigger percentage of
Australians own, or are in process of acquiring, their own homes than
exists in any other part of the world. We rank second only to the United
States when it comes to the availability of motor vehicles in the population.
Our record of sustained employment has not been surpassed in any free
industr ielised country.
So the general picture, as we approach this Senate election
is, as the evidence of your own observation will confirm, that of a healthy
and flourishing economy.
We believe as Liberals that we have played an important part
in bringing about the things we enjoy over a long period of Liberal
leadership. We firmly believe that the free enterprise system we encourage
is preferable to the socialist concepts of our opponents, and is proved
infinitely better by the hard test of results. We always discover, when an
election is due, that our opponents do not relish the facts of growth and
prosperity. They like even less being reminded that our record of
achievement on the Irme front is set in the frame work of a realistic
external policy, and that this external policy has the support of the nation.
Canberra, 17th November, 1967