I ~ PRIME MINISTERI
ADDRESS BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
" IT'S TIME WH1TLAM GOVERNMENT DINNER"
RAND WICK RACECOURSE, 29 AUGUST 1992
E& OE PROOF COPY
Gough, Margaret, distinguished members of the Whitlam Government, supporters,
friends, one and all. Well this is a very lovely night for all of us who were members of
that Goverrnent, and a very important thing for our Party to be doing. It's a nice thing to
celebrate your successes and be proud of your achievements and it's an important part of
your history that you're doing it.
Fred talked about the true believers, we are the believers of Australian politics. We are the
people who believe, we make the system tick. But in celebrating this Goverfnent twenty
years ago, it was not just the election of another Government because we had our share
throughout the century, but we celebrated with the election of the Whitlam Government,
the coming out of Australia. Coming out of 25 years, a quarter of a century, of the torpor
of the Menzian age. That's what we really celebrated. And the re-sparking of Australian
nationalism, the re-sparking of Australian social experimentation, which was killed with
Gallipoli and Flanders at the end of the First World War. That's what we celebrate
tonight. We celebrate Labor coming of age again in 1972.
Of course none of this would have been possible without the leadership of the then darling
of the Fabian set, Fabius Maximus himself, not to be confused with Tiberius Telecom who
certainly had the odd run-in at the time, but he is the person who put Labor back together.
The two problems we faced in all of this century was in that great period, the 1890s, when
the Labor Party was put together in that terrible depression and drought, when we had the
Federation conventions when we put together the Federation, and that period of great
social experimentation where we led the world. All of that made Australia basically a
Labor country until the First World War. And then the other great hurdle we faced was, of
course, the Cold War and the Cold War and the belief that many people had with the
collapse of robber baron capitalism in the United States in the ' 20s, that centrally planned
economies were the way forward, and our party -was divided on this very important issue
for a long time. And it was Gough who put the Labor Party back together, and this is his
great crowning achievement. He made Labor a relevant force again, when another part of
this century have disappeared, he grabbed us almost from the grave and brought us back
together. In truth he made Labor relevant again.
I am here tonight as the leader of the Labor Party, as the Prime Minister, as Bob was here
in the early 1980s and throughout the 1980s, we are here because of what Gough was able
to do in making Labor relative again. Gough understood that the ALP was like a bicycle,
it only stands up when you pedal; if you stop peddling it falls over, if you run out of ideas,
and you run out of push, and you run out of drive, it just sort of lays to one side. But the
thing is he understood the need to lift the national spirit.
And what's " Its Time" was about, it's when you read through the policy speech and the
caption, the records were in many respects quite tame when one compares it to today,
quite tame. But what it did in the epock of that terrible Menzoid, Menzian age, was lifting
the spirit of Australians. And if you were at the Blacktown Town Hall the hair was
standing up on the back of your neck because you know that you were in the presence of
something big. That's what Gough understood, lifting the national spirit, lifting the
national sentiment and exciting people. He taught us again that undiluted affection for
Australia, and a belief that the day might come when this country would not need the
emotional or institutional supports of old affections and old connections. That was what
he taught us, and that's what we started to understand back there in 1972. And that's why
there was so much hope and so much promise. Thiat's why we are able to carry on as we
were, as a Party, right through that period.
And so when we celebrate this Government, we celebrate the dreams of Fred Daly's
generation who came there at the end of the Second World War who have always such
difficult periods to deal with. Scullin arrived in office in the 1930s virtually days before
the collapse of the Depression, the stock market in 1929, Curtin arrived just a short time
before Pearl Harbour. We are always saddled with the tough things to do in this life. We
were denied the easy days of post war growth when people like Fred and others went to
the House, because in the ' 40s Fred was actually in our war time Government, but many
members came in ' 49 and by 1972 had just about given up. We nearly won in 69. Really
the Government of 1972 was mostly won in 1969 and then a couple of years later in' 72 we
pushed it over the line.
And what was put together was a tremendous program of social change and social policy,
*** which lead-Labor back to the-main stream of Australia, of the main stream views which
Australia had in the past, which it had given us the constitution, which had given us some
of the best social policy in the world, and which had taken us back there.
And the fact of the matter is that, that great tradition which Gough and his Government
re-started has continued down through the period. And that is why I think it is a
delightful thing to be able to claim in your history, a continuum between the Labor
Governments, between the Whitlam Government, the Hawke Government and this
Government. This is a delightful thing to be able to do.
And all of the things which the Whitlam Government did, things like Medibank, we've
continued with Medicare. This is one of the great health systems around the world. With
pensions, indexation for pensions, which we have now brought to 25 per cent of average
weekly earnings where we sophisticated the whole of the aged care system. With Gough's
Schools Commission, which has now led to a continuation of these policies with now 7
kids in 10 completing secondary school, and now a new revolution in vocational
education, 40 per cent of kids going into university. We kept the whole policy going that
begun in 1972. In foreign policy, a peculiarly Australian foreign policy, which we now
make without reference to anybody else, thanks to that great period between 1972 and
1975. And even DURD, DURD is back with Better Cities. I don't know whether Tom's
here tonight, but the fact is at the time this was path breaking stuff and again with the
Better Cities we are back doing the same thing. With railways, Gough tried to take the
railways over and make the national system. There were only two clever States at the
time, Tasmania and South Australia, the rest said no. We are doing it all today, same
policies, same sort of Labor Party, same sort of people.
This Government adopted theWorld Heritage conventions, which has been so much a
basis for our environmental policy and all of our actions in Tasmania, or the wilderness
areas, or the wet tropics of Queensland, come relying upon that legislation. Or in
multiculturalism, which was again part of the vogue of the Whitlam Government bringing
Australians together, producing as we did an understanding between cultures and making
one society out of the many cultures of Australia. We are sticking to that, we are not
going to the miserable politics of Dr Hewson.
And in other great reforms like the family allowance supplement, which is one of the
world's leading family income support systems for low income families, or occupational
superannuation for the whole of the workforce, we have seen a traditional Labor
Government in the Whitlam Government, and a continuation of the tradition through the
current Labor Government from 1983 to 1992. And the fact is, Gough, I think we can say,
even though people say of us we're rationalists, no we're not rationalists, we're rational
we're not rationalists. We're not isms and we're not ists, we don't belong to the isms and
we don't belong to the ists. We are not Thatcherite, we are not Reaganite, and we are not
Rogernomic, we are Labor, we are traditional Labor.
We need to always rejoice in the things we have done, because we have got our troubles
and people now are finding the current recession difficult and people are looking
elsewhere for solutions to other Labor Parties in other places. We get told get about New
Zealand and the New Zealand Labor Party, and a few things worth saying. In 1983 we
had 6 million people in the Australian workforce, today we have got 7.6 million, that is 26
per cent bigger. Between 1983 and 1992 the workforce in New Zealand actually got
smaller. And that is the difference between Rogernomics and traditional Labor
economics. And also, not just in that respect, the country is twice as large as its product
ever was.
The fact is, I think we can say Gough, that in the things which you did, started, that your
Ministers took pride in, and the policies you built, these were the foundation stones for the
Hawke Government in 1983 and the Government which I have the privilege to lead now
at this time. We kept them going. We had those dismal years with Malcolm Fraser, but of
course we now understand that compared to John Hewson, Malcolm -was a comparatively
good guy.
It is an interesting thing isn't it? In the 1980s which finished off communism and finished
off monetarism, the parties which have the comprehension and support worldwide now
are the So-cial Democratic Parties. The half hearted, Gordon Gecko Wall Street view of
the world that basically greed is good and survival of the fittest. And its the productive
economy, the efficient economy with the nice social policy grafted on, with a proper
safety net, access to health, access to housing, access to education, all of these things are
basically where societies are going to go and where we have taken Australia.
Now when you look at today's Liberal Party it does believe in isms and ists as we do not
where they've been raised literally on capitalist ideology. We used to say about Malcolm,
Mick and I when we were in the Parliament's Assembly, we would go out there on the
attack every night, we used to accuse Malcolm of just about being a capitalist raider and
all the rest. The truth is he was just a warm old regular. He was. Malcolm was really just
a trifle. Now we have got a leader of the Opposition who makes Malcolm look like a
Bolshie, who believes in all of that wall street eth. His view is that he wants the social
impoverishment of Australia so that everyone who rises out of it will be like him, that is
self made, rising from the ashes of the impoverishment which has produced a better class
of person, a better entrepreneurial type. His spirit is of course the spirit of the 1980s, of
the worst excesses of the 1980s. He is very much a product of the place he is from, it is
Thatcherismn ten years on.
So if your spirit ever flags, if ever you have got any self doubt, if any self doubt creeps
into your hearts and minds, or if you ever wondered whether it is all worth it, just read one
of John Hewson's latest speeches and you will understand, it is. You will understand that
we have got now a conservative, a radical conservative who is going to try and wipe away
a century of social change, a century of industrial progress, a century of social policy and
try to take Australia back to some level of social impoverishment where only basically the
fittest survive. This is what he is about. Never in the last 25 years, in my time in politics,
has there been a greater opportunity for Labor to show what it is made of, and to make a
difference to them that we believe, in essence, economies that can produce the goods, one
that can reduce employment, one it can produce wealth. But also we believe in having
the right to a hospital bed if you are sick, the right to a school and a university if you are a
poor kid, the right to support if you're aged. All these things we believe in, because we
are a tradition.
That's why we come along here tonight. We've got our political difficulties, we know
that. But we are the people who make the Australian history. We are the ones who
nominate the heroes, we anoint the heroes of Australia, we set the ethos of Australia our
Party, our Labor Party. And we are here, we have got our troubles but we are not sad, we
are happy with ourselves, we sleep well at night, we know we always try to do what is
good and what is best. We are into good work and good things for altruistic reasons. And
we are as we are now because other good people did other good things, in our case
years ago. And those Ministers who are here tonight, that I had the privilege of serving
with for just three weeks Mick said he would have given a fortune just to be in there for
three days but to all of those who blazed the trail and took the blow torch on the belly
from the Conservatives, we owe them a debt of gratitude. It is a nice thing for us to
remember them, remember them well, appreciate them, take them to our heart and say
thank you.
And that is what we are doing Gough, we are saying thank you to your Ministers, and we
arc saying thank you to you. We are saying thank you to you because you did take us out
of the Conservative torpor. You did relight the fire of Australian nationalism You taught
neo-Australian's to be something different, to be something to be proud of, an identity of
our own and for that of course we owe you eternal gratitude. And this Government will
do all it can to keep faith with those great ideals. So it is with the utmost of pleasure that I
introduce you, although you need no introduction to this audience, as the person who put
Labor back together, who made Labor relative again, and gave us a chance to show our
social and economic paces of the ' 80s and ' 90s and to make Australia in our image, the
image of a caring party, of a caring society, but one which is productive enough to hold its
head up to the world in clothing, feeding and housing people. We owe you a great debt
and I am sure all of us here tonight appreciate what you have done, you and Margaret,
who fought beside you for all those years and put up with you all those years. We owe
you a great debt of gratitude and it is a nice thing that we have come together to remember
you, to appreciate you and to applaud you.
ENDS