ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE VICTORIAN WOMEN'S
SECTION OF THE LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA
Melbourne, Vic. 26 OCTOBER 1970
a~ ech by the Prime Minister, Mr. John Gorton
Madam Chairman, Distinguished Guests and all those present here:
We are meeting on the eve of a Se.-, ate election. We have far too many
elections, I know. That is not my fault: You will have to look further back than that.
We have far too many, but this is one, and I think a very important significant one,
particularly in the State of Victoria. Because the results of this Senate election caci ld
they could, I don't think they will, but they could result in Labor being able to obtain a
blocking half of the Senate 30 Members, and if they did, then they would be able to
do nothing constructive, but they would be able to do everything obstructive to frustrate,
to delay, on occasions to throw out measures brought in by the Government to fulfil the
promises it made for a three-year period only a year ago. And it could frustrate the
Government achieving the objectives which it has over and above the specific promises
made.... objectives of which I hope to say something to you a little later.
It would be a tragedy for Australia if this election were to result in such
capacity for obstruction and frustration and delay, and that is why it is of such
importance that we should, particularly in Victoria where we can win a seat from
Labor, do everything in our power to see that in fact we do so win.
Let me tell you some of the reasons necessarily briefly why I think
this is so. There is a vast gap between the approach of the Government and the approach
of the Opposition in the fields of defence and Australia's security; i the fields of the
need to see that any gains made by the community are real gains and not merely illusory
monetary gains which buy no mnore; in the attempt to approach the tasks before us
responsibly and not to make a myriad of irresponsible, undocumented promises Vhich
can't be carried out.
Let me advert to those few headings for a start. I believe that a good deal
of discussion at the election will centre on the question of whether Australia and
Australian troops should or should not remain in Vietnam, and wie -, 7ill be called
immoral because we are in Vietnam, and we will be told it is feutile to be in Vietnam,
and we will be told we should at once withdraw. May I examilne in tha light of history
and of present events those matters?
There was a time, after the Geneva Conference to 1954 or thereabouts, when
the people of North Vietnam had their Government and lived under it cand the people of
South Vietnam had theirs. There were no incursions by the Governent or people of
South Vietnam into the North. There were, during that period, no significant incursion
from the North to the South. Both those peoples could have lived in peace. Both of them
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could have lived with independence. One of them at least, South Vietnam, could have
chosen the kind of government under which it wished to live anid that was the situation.
But then there was incursion from the North, there was invasion of a country which wished
to be left alone. There were kidnappings and murders of the people of S,, outh Vietnam.
And if I may paraphrase a former great statesman, the people there were living in peace
but the North was prepared to resort to war rather than to leave the people of the South
to choose their own government, and the Soi'th was prepared to accept war rather than
to have a government imposed on it by force -from the North, arnd sothe war came, and
so South Vietnam asked for help. And President Kennedy, no great reactionary, provided
that help, and we had an alliance, and we also provided that help. But who is immoral
in that situation? Those who are prepared to wiage war rather than let a country live in
independence or those who are prepared to accept war rather than let the independence
of a country be overthrown? Let us think of that.
And then, over the long years, we have had a growing crescendo of attacks,
on South Vietnam, and America, and ourselves. We have had allegations of immorality
lovellbd against us; allegations of immorality for what we have done, but over those
years too, the situation has dramatically improved. We have grown us-ed to hearing 1h e
spokesmen for the Labor Party saying " This isa dirty war" of course it is, all wars are
dirty. We have grown used to them saying " This is an unwinrnable war". Yet, as I
hope to show, it is being won. We have grown used tothemsaying that " There Is no
chance of deciding this matter by military meas". But during all that long period, it is
only the spokesmen of the Labor Party and their friends who have said this. You have
never heard the spokesmen for North Vietnam or the NLF saying there is no chance of
deciding this matter by military means because they know there is, andae they are seeking
to continue and always have been using military means to gain their political ends, and
they will go on doing so until our use of military means convinces them that they are
destined to failure. And so just recently, because we had stayed. in South Vietnam, and the
United States had stayed in South Vietnam while the Sauto. Vietnamese built up their own
capacity to look after themselves, to a point wh~ ere we could begin to withdraw
and that point would not have been reached had we not stayed but because we have done
that President Nixon has been able to offer a cease-fire so that thelkilling can stop,
and negotiation-s so that the objective of the South Vietnamese choosing their government
can be attained. We've offered that. And the cease-fire has been reJected by the North
Vietnamese and the negotiations have been rejected, and yet we who oi~ fered that ceasefire
are held to be immoral while those who rejected it and wanted the killing to continue
presumably are moral. I don't think that Australians will accept that.
And I don't believe, having reached this point where that offer can be ma de,
where the South Vietnamese have so built up their own strength and their own capacity
that Australians would want now to betray those people to whose help we went, to render
useless the sacrifice already made, to render in the future the position of Australia
more vulnerable. Rather do I believe that they would have the resolution to finish what
they have started now that the light at the end of the tunnel grows brighter and would
wish to see that that which was begun was finished and that those people of South Vietnam
had the right to choose their own government, with communists standing for election
if they want to. This will be a matter, I think of significance im this Senate campaign
and it is a matter, I know, of great significance to Australia and to its -future. 3
That's only one aspect of the defence and security of Australia which is likely
to come up, because if Australia were to ado-ot the Opposition's policy in Vietnam, then
there would be no credibility at all to any offers of help to arty other nation in South-East
Asia and we would see threatened not only Laos and Cambodia, whomn we now find being
overrun, but Thailand threatened and probably invaded and the tide moving closer to the
borders of Malaysia.
And having done that, for that wuuld be the result of a Labor policy, it NO uld be
compounded by withdrawing all Australian military assistance to the Five-Power Pact
a Pact designed to try and help those countries even nearer to us Mvalaysia and Singapore.
Having inzreased the threat, the next step wie are told is to withdraw assistance to the
newly threatened areas. Surely all can see whatfeffect that wiould hava on the security
of Australia, we having taken up a position at the request of Malaysia and Singapore and
as a result of' us taking up that position, Britain having come back to t'his area of the
world, we turn our backs upon it and say " Sorry, you can go away. We won't help you.
We are -retreating to our own boundaries alone And Mr. Whitlam can't even pretend
to justify this by " conscience" unless he argues that his conscience will allow him to
have air and naval forces in the area but not ground forces.
Havir g done that, the next step we are told, is then to abolish National
Service Training altogether and reduce the size of a standing Army vie would need far
more in those circumstances than we have ever before needed a standing army in
Australia's history. These are not insignificant matters for a Senate election to
affect. But then I turn to the home front. Here, I think I can say that in the period
we have been in Government, we have made promises and we have carried out more
of those promises in that period than any government has carried in a like period
before. We have heard much lately on the subject of pensions, but on the subject of
pensions generally, ladies, the payment of the pension has increased by 50 wh ile I
have been Prime Minister, and the cost of living increased by 7Th3re has been a
steady improvement in the buying power of the pension in that time, but this is only one
fraction of what has been done in the field of social services. Let me from this bulky
tome of things we have done in all kinds of areas, tell you some of the other matters
that we have done in this particular field.
We have, as you know, provided subsidies to the Meals on Wheels Scheme
ten cents to one dollar and for many living alone, unable perhaps to get out to shop,
if they can get out to shop, paying more for food than is paid by the Meals on Wheels
people who can buy it in bulk and cook it finding it difficult to cooic these Meals
on Wheels cheap, hot, nutritious, are of great benefit indeed, and I am happy that
we have been able greatly to assist this particular organisation because there we have
a marrying of governmental finance and private work which ia this field should never
be lost. 4
We have I speak of some relatively minor things first set up an employment
training scheme for assistance to married and single women previously restricted by
domestic responsibilities. We have had quite a significant number of applications for
training under this scheme, and one of them, I think, you might find of interest. There
was an application sent in to us by a woman and she said to the person she was writing
to " I am forty-two years of age, but when you read that, don't think ' ah, an " oldie".'
Think, by George, this woman is the same age as Liz Taylor, Sophia Loren and the
astronauts. She was accepted.'
We have brought in the increases in pensions generally of which I have spoken,
brought in, as you know, a tapered means test, provided capital for homes for handicapped
children, brought in hearing aids for pensioners, helped the FlyiIlg Doctor Service,
provided help for nursing homes from $ 2 a bed to $ 5 a bed for people requiring heavy
care, given greater assistance to homes for the aged, increased tuberculosis
allowance, helped in the case of deserted wives, increased grants to the Australian
Council for the Ageing, increased the age allowance which is the level at which
taxation begins on old people's salaries, advanced vocational training for widows, helped
widows . idowed overseas, paid pensions to persons absent from Australia, increased
unemployment aid sickness benefits. We have introduced a Health Scheme which costs
the patient less and provides the patient with more than the discredited Labor Scheme.
I don't want to go on, there are too many things here. I believe there are thirty new
approaches which have been made in this one field, and of that no one of us needs to be
in any way ashamed.
But this area this area of social help is the other great area to vh ich I think
we must direct our own attention. There are still some promises to be fulfilled.
We stated, just a year ago, that we would provide more help for low-income earners
with large families. This we will do. But there are other objectives not yet clearly
stated, not yet clearly put in the form of promises, but objectives which we have before us.
One of these is to further help those who have long-term illnesses, not in
hospitals because we have helped them, but long-term illnesses in nursing homes. Some
help has been given, but yet there is still a great and unsolved problem which is a
weight, I knovw, on many families.
Another of them, another real objective, must be to set up throughout
Australia, or to help with the States to set up throughout Australia kindergarten-cumchild-
minding centres, because now so many families are both working and so many
children do not have areas to mh ich they can go and be properly cared for an perhaps
be taught a little while their r -s are away. This I would regard as of very high
priority.
May I touch very briefly on twio other great
objectives because I think perhaps I have spoken long enough already. But there are
new problems now which are not yet solved but are crying for solution. I think indeed
that in the last two and a half to three years there have been more new problems, and
more old problems, greatly exacerbated than has occured in any similar time. Some
of them in the Defence field I have touched on~, but one of the really sgiicant
problems for us all whereever we live is the problem faced by many a! our rural
industries, problems brought on because tne world either will not buy what they produce
in the quantities in which they produce it, or 4-f they will buy it, are not prepared
to pay for it sufficient to enable it to continue to be produced. There is no simple
answer to this. But that it is a problem of immense significance, I am sure you will
agree. My Government believes it is and believes that it is one of the great tasks
before it in the ensuing period of its office. And I know this that the problems of
the rural industries, the difficulties which they face, will be greatly exacerbated and
their economic position will greatly deteriorate if the Opposition and Mr Hawke, with
whom ' the Leader of the Opposition works so closely, can bring in a 35-hour week in
the rest of industry, and can unrestrictedly increase wages in the rest of industry
without any regard for the productivity of the economy as a vhole. This will hit
rural industries more than anything else, for this will raise the costs to them which
they cannot pass on. And this is what we seek to avoid. We want to see insofar as it
is possible, that all those working in this country in whatever jobs, get wages as high
as they can be, provided they are real wages which will buy real things and not
merely figures on a sheet of paper which will not improve their real wages oxtheir
living standards at all.
After all, what is earned by an individual, or what is earned by the companies
for which those individuals work is not the end of the story. ' That is take-home pay, if
you like, for the worker take-to-investors pay, for the company. But then out of that
there must come all the requirements that the community wanits. Cut of the company
profits must come half or virtually half, at once, for the schools vie need and the
hospitals and the social benefits I have been talking about. And out of the pay packet
taken home must also come some of the cost of these amenities which, looked at
properly, are in fact part of the take-home pay for all people in AuStralia. Ncw, if we
are to develop as we can, provide the things wie need, one of the es senitials should be
that we do it genuinely, that we do it without so inflating prices that what looks as though
it is going to be done is not done, that we work with real money and not fool's gold,
and this is the other great objective before this Government. That's what I meant,
when I spoke of a responsible approach instead of an irresponsible string of glittering
promises. So this is important, this election. The matters which can be affected by
it are important. There are many others I can't touch on now, but I thank you for
having given me the time to touch on those I have, and I look to you all to see that in
Victoria our three Senators are elected for the good of Victoria and -for the good of
Australia.