PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
ADDRESS BY THE FRIXE MSTER or AusTRALiA,
THE RON R J L HAIME AC HgP
AT A rEETNG OF THE ANZAC PARLIAxmNmA~ y GROUP
WESTIIINSTER, * WNDON 22 JUNE 1989
Mr Chairman
Distinguished Members of the Lords and Commons
I am very grateful to the ANZAC Group for this opportunity
to address under its auspices this gathering of members of
the Lords and Commons.
No Australian -certainly no Australian Prime Minister
could stand in this place and fail to be powerfully reminded
of its meaning and significance for Australia.
It was here in 1787 that the Speech from the Throne
announced the intention of the Pitt Administration to form
the First Settlement. It was this Parliament which
authorised the first expenditures on the infant colony of
New South Wales.
The legislation which established all the basic institutions
of parliamentary government and the judiciary in the
Australian colonies were Acts of this Parliament at
Westminster. The Constitution of the Commonwealth of
Australia is itself an Act of this Parliament, passed on 9
July 1900 as " 63 and 64 Victoria Chapter 12"; and stating
in the preamble: " Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's
Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent
of the Lords, Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this
present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the
same". And it was the Statute of Westminster in 1931 which
ultimately put beyond question the sovereign independence of
Australia, as a dominion within the Commonwealth of Nations.
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No other nation in the world has had so direct and detailed
a legislative and constitutional connection with the
Parliament at Westminster. Indeed, it was only in 1986 that
the direct links were finally and formally severed, with the
passage by the Commonwealth Parliament of the Australia Bill
which terminated any powers there might still remain in this
Parliament to make laws affecting Australia. Thus, after
200 years the formal connection came to an end.
But, of course, Mr Chairman, that aspect of the connection
was never, even in the colonial days, the most important
part of it. The really important links, the true bonds will
remain as long as both our Parliaments endure. Our
Parliaments are pre-eminent in the world as examples of that
system of parliamentary democracy known as the Westminster
system. And it was here that, over the centuries, all the
great rules and institutions which underpin the system were
shaped. In particular, the principle of ministerial
responsibility and accountability to Parliament. It is this
principle which is the essence of parliamentary democracy
and distinguishes it from all other forms of democracy.
No statute of your Parliament, and no clause in our written
Constitution enforces this principle. Yet it is the
historic heart'and constitutional core of the system.
it is a measure of the strength of parliamentary democracy
and its effectiveness in fulfilling the hopes and needs and
aspirations of the people of our two countries that its most
fundamental feature, its very foundation should rest, in the
final analysis, upon a mere convention.
of course,, what has given that principle its enduring
effectiveness, in practice, is the growth of the party
system within the parliamentary system and, specifically,
the development of an effective two party system.
It may be, in this television age, that the great political
parties in Britain and Australia, and we, the politicians
who have to operate within the system, are increasingly the
target for scorn and derision although one only has to
glance at, say, a concordance of Shakespeare and look up the
word " politician" to see that nothing has changed much over
the last 400 years.
Be that as it may, there is no substitute for the parties in
our system. You cannot have an effective parliamentary
democracy without effective political parties. And whatever
re-alignments may be necessary from time to time and
nothing is constant in the swirl and sweep of politics we
will only have great parliamentary democracies as long as we
continue to have within Parliament, great political parties,
identifiable by their policies, their discipline,
allegiances and associations.
In the development of these fundamentals of the Westminster
system, our two countries have followed remarkably similar
paths. This has not been, in Australia, a process of mere
imitation and replication. From the beginning of,
responsible government in the two major colonies of New
South Wales and Victoria in 1856, the Australians set out to
put their own mark and character on their Parliaments.
Manhood suffrage, votes for women, the single vote, same-day
elections, and the secret ballot were all pioneered in
Australia. Notably, we formed the world's first
parliamentary labor party. In exactly two year's time, we
will celebrate the centenary of the Australian Labor Party,
when at the first election ever contested by organised
political Labor we returned 35 members to the New South
Wales Legislative Assembly in a House of 140.
And, of course, with the coming of Federation, with a
written Constitution, drawing on elements of the American
and Canadian federal systems and in the case of the
referendum provisions, on the Swiss, Australia has obviously
developed its variations on the Westminster model.
Beyond these constitutional and political innovations, we
have undoubtedly developed an Australian style and approach
in the operations of our political institutions.
My distinguished predecessor, Sir Robert Menzies, records in
his memoirs, that Winston Churchill once remarked to him:
" My goodness! You do seem to play your politics with a fine
18th century vigour".
That, of course, was meant as a compliment from one who
regarded the Parliaments of Wilkes and Sheridan,, Burke, Pitt
and Fox, as a golden age.
And it is true that our politics are tough, robust, and
perhaps at times even rough, in the characteristically
forthright Australian manner.
But, much more important is the tenacity with which we
adhere to fundamentals of parliamentary democracy. That is
the source of the continuing strength and energy of
democracy in Australia.
And perhaps the most remnarkable thing of all is that despite
the very considerable changes in the composition of the
Australian population since the war, despite the new
richness and diversity in our society created by communities
of very different backgrounds,, some with different systems
of democracy, some where there is no tradition of democracy
at all, despite these changes, the Australian commitment to
parliamentary democracy remains as strong as ever.
There could not be a more fitting place than this to
reaffirm the commitment to the Australian people to
parliamentary democracy this place from whence it sprang.
Nor could there be a more fitting time these days when
around the world, so much hope and, in one tragic case, so
much despair is associated with the cause of democracy.
From the Elbe to the western shores of the Pacific, we have
witnessed in recent years, months and weeks, stirrings of
the spirit of human f reedom of immense consequence f or the
future of the world.
In so vast a picture, in so momentous a mixture of hope and
tragedy, it is difficult to discern a clear pattern, much
less predict outcomes.
But one thing is clear, one constant star: totalitarianism
has no answer to the unquenchable spirit of human freedom,
save terror.
And in the end, that is no answer. at all.
Hitler's bombs nearly destroyed the fabric of this building.
The fabric of parliamentary democracy survived as strong as
ever. All of Western Europe which lay under the heels of
the dictators has now achieved a unity under democracy
inconceivable at the outbreak of the war fifty years ago.
This twentieth century has witnessed unimaginable horrors of
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totalitarianism can offer, I am convinced that the twentieth
century will end in a wider triumph for democracy than we
could have believed possible even a decade ago. And if my
conviction is borne out, then it will have been due, in no
small measure, to the example and exertions in the cause of
democracy, for so many generations, in the Parliament of
Westminster. Again fellow-parliamentarians, thank you very much for the
interest you are shoving through the ANZAC Group in
I've been very pleased to learn that your Chairman has
accepted the invitation of the Australian Parliament to
visit Australia when he is in our part of the world in July
and August. And we look forward also to the visit of the
Joint Secretaries of the ANZAC Croup, Neil Hamilton and
Robin Corbett as guests of the Australian Parliament shortly
after that.
Again, thank you for the warmth of your welcome today, and
for your contribution to the objective we all share the
strengthening of the bonds, at all levels, between Britain
and Australia. TOTAL PAGE. 001