AUSTHALIA
PRIME MINISTER
EXTRACT FROM SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER TO THE AUSTRALIAN
LABOR PARTY STATE COUNCIL, SYDNEY, 1 MAY 1983
Let me just say something briefly about what we have done in
the very short time that we've been in office. And then
I want to contrast that with the alternative which has been
offered to the people of Australia, something which has
been starkly highlighted by the events of this past week.
Now, its often been said we didn't go into the election of
the 5th of March with some hastily concocted program or
philosophy or view of the nature of-the crisis confronting
this country and what had to be done about it. We had
carefully thought through and had clearly perceived the
essential nature of the problem confronting this country.
It wasn't to be understood just in terms of inadequate
economic theories that had been applied the past seven years.
Nor was it to be perceived simply in terms of the inadequacy
of a Prime Minister and the people around him. Essentially
it had to be seen in terms of a country, of magnificent resources,
having been more divided with a greater degreee of confrontation
imposed upon it than at any time in its history. And we knew
that it was impossible for this country to start the task
of reconciliation, of recovery and reconstruction unless
the people would start to be brought together under a
Government which saw that the need was for the people to have
a common perception of their problems and on the basis of
that common perception to start to act together.
We understood that you could call upon the vast reserves of
decency within the Australian people and within its organisations;
a compassion for those in this community in need and none more
obviously in need than the vast and growing army of unemployed.
And so it was with that message, it was with that understanding,
that we went to the people and-the people of Australia responded
to our understanding. And we didn't wait one single day after
we were cowumissioned in office to start to give effect to our
understanding which had been responded to by the Australian
people. For as I promired during the campaign the first thing
we would do on the first day of government was to issue the
invitations to the National Economic Summnit Conference. And this
I did on the first day. I signed the letters to all people who
were coing to come to that great conference. We didn't simply
sit idly by and wait for them to turn up on the llth of April but
a great deal of work went into the preparation of that Summit
and I pay tribute to the trade union movement, the great employer
organisations and individual employers, to other groups, including
ACOSS, the Local Government Association of Australia, the federal
associations and also, may I say, particularly those often
maligned people, the public servants and bureaucrats who responded
som cr tlhem who C'erhaps had had a degree of scepticism a1boot what
k. fl .7C; l du to
L6 tL: 1h a of wucou dt; b pa c. W
cI1I " 2 ~ x a to: tioc -2c i s ion pr io r to) Lh_: cltual S3I! rnmit being
C nnd. aaicd c a s -i P ai. t ccu izir iU' e to tio a Lseminati on
of and of informnation as a bcasiK . af proper understanding
' And ; s a hasis of proper ( decision -, ak-ing th-it we were cioing t%-o
tear the veil away from the secrecy which consistently had bec-n
held tic'htlv over the sources of guarded, information under the
seven years of conservative government. And we made available
in advance of the Summit, to all the people that were going to
be there, and then to the media, whati had hitherto been regarded
as the ccnfidential preserve of government. Now that's rno way
to run a government and to cet a cohesiv e society together.
So we mnade thc informati. on available in it way which has
universall., acknowlcdqed as unprecedonted-in the history of
this -ountlt dinaen W i 5SM-' tCIIE d inl Very. few ether
couritries c. C' th1e world. And we will continue to do that b: ecause
we b-elieve th'-at wec have no monopoly of w:; i~. we certainly
hav7e rio menono lv of experience to b1. ring to bear upon the preblems
of our country. I. We beli-eve we are well equipped to deal with
them but we certainly believe that if we are going to get the
best out of the trade union movement out of the employers
and out of the welfare organisations and out of the representatives
o' the thir-d tier of goverinmc-nt local gove-_ rnm-, ent of the professional
associations: if' wo areC goanI! to acgt th--lbest out of them and
they a re goin g. to cii vc their best to us tieen they are entitled to
nave aval lable to '(-hem the samne de-gree of information that we
hav 0 1( otn 1 o w o did' : n pr'b.-cati. for the Summit
ccot-r: I4 i o-ea ter ' Lh-ic Su mnI Ant b1el1ieve that this, of
I sl , is atn hisL . uicwatershed in the processes of government
F! nd in ti wa' v n w-nich socioety is treat-ca b its elected
novrernnment. A. nd as we continue to give effect to that so will
hequality of joeeetand the quality of our society improve.
All,-So the S unait wnheld6 on the basis of that historically
! iriprecedenteci dissem-ination of releva-: nt information.
On Thursday in Sydney, ini the second week after the Surmmit,
we hold a meeting with Paul Keat ing and Chris Hurford and
Jo Dawkins in rces:; ct of the housing industry. Because what
had emerged at the Sumniit was that there was a large degree
of consensus amongst the employers, the building and
construction employers, amongst the trade unions, amongst
the various areas of government that one particular segment
that we could move on to get the economy moving, tp lift the
level of activity, to start to create more jobs within the
housing industry. So that meeting was held last Thursday
and on the basis of that and on the reports that have been
given to me I know that in this coming period of time, in the
third week I think of May, when we bring down our economic
statement, there will as a result of what occurred at the
Summit be presented to the Parliament a specific program
of action around housing which will be directed towards what
we w.-nt, that is lifting activity and providing more jobs.
Now what have the events of this past week shown in terms of
the alternative which is available to us, the alternative which
is offered by the Liberal Party under Andrew Peacock. We have
just been through the events of the Constitutional Convention
in Adelaide. I h. ad some cause to talk about this on Friday
night to your colleagues . at the creat cathering we had of the
Labor Party in Victoria to celebrate the events of the 5th of
March. I said what the events of this last week have shown was how
tragically inadequate is that alternative which is now shaping
up under the le. ader., hip of Mr Peacock. Because there in Adelaide
you had this Constitutional Convention which had what task? It
had the task of sa'yin' what are we as a community going to do
in terms of providin,; the people of Australia today and the
future citizens of Australia tomorrow what are we going to do
about : providirn : them with a cons ticutional instrument which
will be relevant to their needs as they go towards the end
of the twentiet; century and try and put themselves in
the proper position to launch in to the twenty-first century.
We were concerned with the future and your Labor Party, through
yourLabor governments representing the overwhelming majority
ofthe people of Australia, we played it according to the rules.
We went there with the capacity, if we'd wanted to, to load
the delegations of the federal government and of the governmentsof
New South Wales, Victoria, Sbuth Australia and Western
Australia, but we didn't, we played the rules. And so the
composition of the national delegation and of the delegations
in those four states were even numbers of government and
of opposition. We didn't use the power that was available to
us, if we'd wanted to, to break the rules and to break the
conventions. But what did those two remaining bastions
of conservatism, Queensland and Tasmania do? They broke
the rules. They couldn't look to the future, they are
obsessed with preserving the past. And so the delegation
from Queensland was nine out of twelve from government.
And our colleagues from Queensland, I guess understandably
too, they weren't going to be part of that charade. And so
the Queensland delegation was nine. Tasmania did the same
thing not an even number that we, the government, the
Labor Party, no. And so because we'd played the rules, we
played it fair, square, dinkum because we'd done it and
we've got the national government and four out of the six
state governments we were in a minority because they'd
loaded the numbers against us.
Now Andrew Peacock had the opportunity after the people
of Australia had spoken and spoken so clearly on the
of March that they wanted political parties concerned with
the problems of the present in terms of the hopes of the
future he had the great opportunity in this last week
in Adelaide, to face up to that challenge and meet the desires
and aspirations of the Australian people. What did he do
and what did those around him do? They desparately sought
refuge in the past. And as I said on Friday night
in Melbourne speaking to your Melbourne colleagues, we
saw the emergence of the new raj, in Australian politics,
Robin, Andrew and Joh.
There he is, not merely squeezed in between Robin Gray
and Joi. Bjelke-Peterson, but eagerly taking over from
Joh Bjelke-Peterson, the most reactionary motions and
reactionary philosophy. ie even goes to the extent of
turning back on what they were saying in the campaign
just a few weeks ago about the need for contemporaneous elections
of the Senate and the House of Representatives. They know thats
not now on. Hle took over Joh Bjelke-Peterson's motion. Now
here were we trying to decide responsibly let's concern
ourselves with the present.
Cc I r ill I -L ' I r rl d
LOL'I sec0 how Lhis ins lrumc;~ w da-whnc, up contury ago
amongst six reluctant colonies -let's see without being unduly
radical let's see how we car impro--ve that instrument to deal
with the present and the foreseeable future problems of
Australia. But we were frustrated because what we wanted to do
was frustrated on party lines where we clearly had the political
majority but because we played the rules-( inaudible) and these
people, as I've said, wanted to preserve the privileges and the
relics of the past for the benefit of a mninority of people in
this country against the interests of the vast majority. They
ganged up 1having broken all the conventions again, reviving and
demonstrating to the people of Australia that what happened
in 1975 was no accident. The people of Australia should be
very very careful that if they don't want to bring back the
basic divisiveness of 1975 they must learn because in Adelaide
this week the conservatives of Australia, now under the new raj,
with Andrew Peacock there between Robin and Joh have shown
that constitutional conventions and decency and fair play mean
nothing to them. What they did in November 1975 they repeated
again in Adelaide this last week. And those are the true
alternatives that have now been starkly revealed by the politics
of 1983.
A party, the Labor Party, which has said we don't have all
wisdom, a party which has gone out to the people of Australia
and said we want to join with you so that we can deal with the
present and w.. ith the future and we're doing it constructively
and co-operatively. Against that you have now the conservatives
of this country now led by Pea-. ck are like preservers of the
past. They learn nothing, they forget nothing. And this
party is a party of conservatism who strut around and talk about
the necessity to adhere to the principles of law and order
and of the decencies and conventions of our society. When
the opportunities arose trampled them underfoot and have
prevented the people of Aus'ralia having the opportunities
th,' ey should have had in this past week Eo address themselves
constructively and co-operatively to those problems.