OPENING OF YOUNG LIBERAL YEAR 1968
BRI SBANE
18th January, 1968
Speech by the Prime Minister, Senator John Gorton
I don't think that it is possible for me really to
communicate to you the great warmth of feeling that rises
within me by having you here and by having such an undeserved
reception from you. But I can say this, that though I think
that as of now this reception is undeserved, I will promise
you that as far as it lies within my power, I will try in the
years ahead to make it deserved.
One of the things that has been worrying me since
the party elected me to be Prime Minister and the reception
that I feel that this has had throughout the country is the
feeling pressing in on me a little that there are great
expectations of dramatic changes, of sudden variations in
direction, of immensely exciting things happening all at once.
They can't happen that way in the field in which we are engaged.
You can't all of a sudden, in the middle of a financial year,
in the middle of a particular course, have pyrotechnic displays
which change everything in one moment. But that doesn't mean
that we cannot start on new courses, that we cannot think in
new directions, that we cannot, with increasing momentum,
although that momentum may take eighteen months or two years,
but with increasing momentum, set the goals before you and
the people of Australia, indicate what is required to reach
those goals, call on you for the effort needed to achieve those
goals and in that, way, perhaps, meet these new challenges that
you expect us all together to meet. So if there is no drama
immediately, bear that in mind. If there is no sudden
pyrotechnic, bear that in mind. This does not mean that there
will not be for you and us together, new paths to follow which
you may help to indicate to us.
You, Sir, spoke of an Australian national anthem
" God Save The Queen" and " Australia". It reminds me of
somebody who, I think, went to Canberra with their small child
and saw the House of Representatives beginning as you remember
the House of Representatives always begins with a prayer.
The small child said, " Are they praying for the Members of the
House of Representatives" and the mother said, " No, they are
looking at the House of Representatives and praying for
Australia". Actually, that was first told against the American
Senate. But you did speak of a National Anthem. While, of
course, " God Save The Queen" is the over-riding anthem for
Australia, and I regard this as of some significance in a
growing country, I must tell you I am a " Waltzing Matilda" man
myself. I know that song may have originated during the
Marlborough wars somebody once told me that was true, I don't
know. I don't think it matters. i/ hat I think matters is that
it was first sung when this country was first discovered and
first developed. And not beyond the bounds of this country was
it known for some while, but then it began to be known, and
those who went from this country in the 1914-1918 War spread
" Waltzing 1vatilda" and marched to " Waltzing Matilda" and it
became known a little in Europe and other countries of the
world.
2.
In between times whenever two or three Australians
might be gathered together in some foreign country, sooner or
later, somebody usually with a frightful voice would begin
to sing " Waltzing Matilda" and it would become even more known.
I remember myself during the Second World Wat we were in England
and stationed in London and wearing a different uniform from
the RAF, a dark blue RAAF, and walking into nightclubs, because
in those days, they were still interested in nightclubs. and * 1
that was relatively early, and the band when we walked in would
begin to play " Waltzing Matilda". There was a warm feeling
spreading through one at that just as there was when the slouch
hat was hauled to the peak of the flag pole above Bardia to
the strains of " Waltzing Matilda". I think this song is so
integrated into Australia that whatever a government might do,
whatever an ABC might do and, of course, ABC's are far more
important than governments in relation to this " Waltzing
Matilda" will never be able to be taken away from what is the
ethos of the Australian people. Have your anthem, Sir, but
please do not ever allow this song to fall into disuse.
I remember once I went into Taiwan, and the leader
of our delegation was a very distinguished gentleman called
Sir John Latham who was the Chief Justice of Australia, and
he confided to me on the way that the one song he hated above
all others was " WValtzing Matilda", and I said, " Why?" And he
said, " Viell, I am a lawyer, and it is absolutely ridiculous
that a swagman would jump into a billabong and drown himself
merely to escape a charge of stealing a jumbuck, which would,
at the utmost, mean about five days in gaol." 1 So I had great
pleasure when we arrived in Taiwan in persuading all the
Chinese authorities that the one song that the leader of our
delegation liked better than any other was " Waltzing Matilda",
and it would have been thoroughly successful except that they
had played it in Chinese music and he never knew what was being
played, and neither did I! But it is, I think, a part of the
blood of this country of Australia.
mean, what Haavo inweg tonu. i jathoen m th avjñ~ eng auasses, o ng9 6awlayt rtehea lliyn podroet ant thing
atth e afnuyt u'rgei, ve na mnod mewnhta t inc ahni wset ordyr awi sf rwohma-tt haer e pawset . g-otoi nHge ltpo ubsu iltdo for
build the future. I think that here in this country we
have a great deal to draw from the past and a unique opportunity
for the future. Just use your imaginations for a moment
forget that you are living in a capital city in the Australia
of today, in which you were born, in which many of your parents
were born, which is your country, and think what it must have
been like at the beginning when to these shores came people
from England, from Scotland, from Ireland, from the United
Kingdom. Think of them living in some loneliness, fairly
isolated from the countries which gave them birth, pushing out,
further out into the country with the women isolated from
contact with other women to gossip ( which women always like
to do) living alone, clearing the land, raising a family in
strange surroundings, in unusual circumstances, in loneliness,
calling for effort, calling for fighting against drought and
flood and fire and famine, and of the steadfastness which kept
those people there and which, over the years as this country
developed, built it first in the hinterland, and then as a
result of the riches grown there because of the years of effort
put in there, built the cities which in turn provided the
technological and other advances required. Think for a moment,
just for a moment of that history, where you depended on bullock
trains for transport, where you depended on horseback or buggy
for travel. That is not history for which any country need have
anything but pride. It has enabled us to reach the stage we
have reached today. From it we can draw some inspiration for
what it is we wish to reach in the future. But what is it that
we wish to reach in the future?
3.
Very largely, this is in your hands. It is in the
hands of your leaders, but your leaders will be swayed by the
feelings that you have as to what it is you wish this country
to stand for, as to the paths you wish it to follow.
I am sure and I now talk politically in the best
sense that what you would want to see in this country for the
future is a continuance, and perhaps a refinement of that
political freedom that we have today, that you would be prepared,
as at some time you might have to be prepared, to fight against
some doctrine of absolute and autocratic rule from the top, that
you would be prepared to see that it is impossible for a society
to live in anarchy, and that you would seek to find between that
autocratic rule from the top and that anarchy from the bottom,
some arrangement by which the general will could prevail, giving
freedom to all but not allowing that freedom to extend where it
became licence and threatened the freedom of others. This, I
am sure, is the political base on which you would want to build
our future country. But having given that political base, then
what do you want to see?
Of course, and this is simple, you would wish to see
the material capacities of this country, the material rewards
to those who are living in it, growing, This is obvious, this
is simple, this is easy, this is not, ultimately, important.
But you would wish to see that happen, I am sure, and you would
seek to see that it did happen. But that alone, that alone
couldn't make this a great country, couldn't allow us to take
the chance, the unique chance that we have here to build and
show that a democracy can provide in the world a country better
than any other system can provide. I say " unique" because they
must follow their own talents to the top of their bent, whether
they lie in the field of painting, whether they lie in the field
of music, whether they lie in the field of business administration.
wherever it may be, there is inside each human being, in this
and all other countries, a desire to express themselves, and the
way they can express themselves is by taking the talents that
are inside them and using them and they can only do this if the
opportunity is provided, if the education is provided, if the
material well-being is provided.
There is, I think, some quite meretricious cynicism
in this country today, at least some meretricious cynicism
reported in the papers of this country today about the youth
of Australia, that they have thrown away the values of the past,
that they question the values of their parents. Of course, they
should question the values of their parents and I think they do.
I don't think they throw them away. I don't believe, and I
think you are some living examples to justify my lack of belief,
that there is in the youth of Australia a cynicism. I believe
there is in the youth of Australia a desire to build. I believe
there is in the youth of Australia a desire to give, I believe
that the youth of Australia would respond to other words of
President Kennedy's, " You ask what yo ' ur country can do for you.
Ask rather what you can do for your country". And it is to a
man like me, standing in a place like this tonight, of such
enormous importance that there should be in this room from all
over Queensland so many young people who are taking an interest
in how their cauntry shoula be governed, in the paths their
country should follow, who are prepared to give themselves to
see these paths are followed, their country outside of themselves
is made great. It is of~ such importance to a man like me standing
here, it is of such importance to our country, it is such a
refutation of this cheap charge of cynicism so often levelled
against the youth of Australia. -4
It will not be long, in the way in which the lives
of nations are mentioned, it will be little less than the
blinking of an eye before some of you here in this room are
called to do the same kind of work that my colleagues and
myself do now. You are preparing yourselves for it, and I
only hope, and I believe that this will be true, that when
that time comes you will be buttressed, you will be supported,
you will be given the spiritual courage which we are given
now by having you here with us.
I haven't much more to say to you. I don't propose
to talk on details of politics or details of policies some
other time. This is the first speech that I have made since
becoming Prime Minister, and I wanted to make it to young
people. I wanted to make it not on what the rate of taxation
should be, or what the rate of excise should be or what there
should be given to this or to that, but rather on the motivating
forces, on the real wellsprings of a nation which alone will
keep a party great, which alone will keep a country great, and
I believe that I see here before me living examples that that
spring is in this party and is in Australia.
I will finish as I began, that I will do my utmost
to be worthy of the support of people such as you, and together
we may see, we may attain more than Henry Lawson thought of,
not only " the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended
and at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars", but
in those sunlit plains are people, happy, arguing, working,
building, and by effort, because by effort alone these things
can be attained, making a country great materially and great
spiritually for the people who live in it.
This conference is open.