E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………….
Well thank you very much, Tony. Gee, I was hoping for a slightly nicer introduction than that. Can I say to you, Tony, thank you very, very warmly for those very gracious and generous words; to Jim; to Tony and Caroline Rundle, to Jocelyn Newman and to my other Federal and State parliamentary colleagues.
It is an enormous pleasure to be back here in Tasmania. I’ll save the sort of substantive, the more substantive speech for tomorrow at the opening of the State Council but I would like, tonight, in a few moments, to say a couple of things that I really feel very strongly. And the first of the things that I want to say to all of you is how much I admire the work that Tony Rundle did as Premier of this State.
The last year in politics has been both bitter and sweet for Liberals in Tasmania. All of you are entitled to share the pleasure that all Liberals around Australia share in our Federal win. You are also, understandably, entitled to feel disappointed at the reaction of the Tasmanian electorate towards the courage and candour and honesty and foresight that Tony Rundle and the former Liberal government displayed in this State.
Tasmania has deep and fundamental economic problems. And Tony Rundle had the courage and the honesty and the tenacity and the commitment to the future of Tasmania to call those problems for what they were. And he offered, alone of the political leaders in the last Tasmanian election, he offered an honest solution to a deep and enduring problem. And until the solution that Tony Rundle offered at the last election is embraced by a Tasmanian government, those problems will remain. That may not be palatable for some Australians in Tasmania, it may not be palatable for our Labor opponents but you know it to be true. And the fact that Tony was willing at very great and ultimately significant political cost to him to put that argument won him the admiration of Liberals around Australia, won him the most precious commodity of all in public life and that is respect. Because there’s nothing more important in public life than respect. It’s not the length of time you’re in government. It’s not the length of time you’re in Parliament. It’s not the number of glib remarks you can make about your opponents. It’s whether, at the end of the day, you can look yourself in the mirror and say, I did it for the interests of Tasmania or I did it for the interests of Australia. And Tony did have the courage to do that and I admire him for it. I’m sorry the result was not more deserving so far as he was concerned but he does, I’m sure, properly rest easy in the knowledge that the programme that he took to the Tasmanian people was right for the future of Tasmania. It remains correct and until it is embraced by the current or a future Tasmanian government those deep seeded difficulties are going to remain. And no amount of obfuscation from the new Tasmanian government or from the Labor Party, federally, can alter that fact. Can I say that as a colleague to work with Tony was a courteous, intelligent, effective representative of the people of Tasmania. It was a great delight to deal with him and I’m sorry that I no longer have to deal with him as Premier of Tasmania.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are two other people that I’d like to particularly mention tonight and they are my two former colleagues from federal electorates in Tasmania, Chris Miles and Warwick Smith. Chris entered Parliament, as did Warwick, in 1984. Warwick went through the agony in 1993 of losing by 40 votes. He went through the agony of losing again in 1998, having come back in 1996, by fewer than 100 votes. He was a very effective Minister, he was a very effective member and I want to thank him for the contribution that he made to the Government as the Minister, firstly, in the area of sport and local government and territories and, subsequently, as Minister for Family Services. Both of them were difficult portfolios and both of them he carried out with very great distinction and flair.
To you, Chris, let me thank you most warmly for many of the things that you did by way of very significant contribution to the Parliamentary Liberal Party, most recently as Cabinet Secretary, a position not highly publicised but a position that involves attendance at all Cabinet meetings, on all subjects and subsequent coordination of many ministerial responses and the necessary response from my Department and my office to the decisions and the workings of Cabinet. Over the years, in many other ways, you’ve played a very significant role in the Parliamentary Liberal Party. I want to thank you for those 14 years of service to the Liberal Party and those 14 years of representation of the people of Braddon. I’m sorry that the result was not otherwise. I wish you and Ros and your family every health and every happiness for the future.
It is always the case in politics that mingled with the happiness and the enjoyment of a success are some of the losses that are suffered and some of the friends and the colleagues who are so undeservedly defeated. But Tony was right to describe the victory that we achieved throughout Australia on the 3rd of October as a very remarkable thing. In many ways it was a greater victory than 1996. Because in 1996 there was a tidal wave of resentment against the former government. In the years that I’ve been active in politics I can remember on four or five occasions, in 1972, in 1975, in 1983 and again in 1996, an absolutely passionate desire on the part of the Australian people to achieve a change of government. And that was the mood of the Australian people in 1996.
But in 1998 it was different. My predecessor had gone. The government that had been in office for 13 years had gone and the issues were different and the challenges were different. And on this occasion we did put forward a very bold, a very comprehensive and, in the eyes of many political commentators and many pollsters and many others and Tony is right, we put forward a programme that was very, very different and created a challenge the like of which the party has not had before. And I’m immensely grateful for the support that the organisation gave me. I’m immensely grateful for the stoicism and the commitment and the loyalty of all of my colleagues and I thank them very warmly and I thank the Liberal Party organisation here in Tasmania as I do all around Australia. And through Tony and Lynton Crosby, who did such a remarkable job as the Federal Director of the Liberal Party, and everybody else who worked so very hard so soon after a State election here in Tasmania to maximise the Liberal vote in this State.
We now have a remarkable opportunity in front of us. We have been given a mandate and an authority that many people never believed that we would receive. We have won an election against odds. We have won an election advocating changes that few political commentators would ever recommend that you advocate before an election. And we are now absolutely and resolutely and totally committed to implementing that programme. As I said at the Queensland conference last weekend, we will use every legitimate means at our disposal to implement that tax plan with the minimum of delay. We’ve had the argument, we’ve had the debate, we’ve had the scrutiny, we had a seven week election campaign and the highest authority in a democracy, and that is the people, have spoken. In democracies people carry more weight than anybody else because that is what democracy is all about. And the Australian people have voted us in and we intend to obey their instructions and we intend to implement the policy that we took to the election with the greatest possible dispatch.
Two other things I would like to say to you, my friends, and that is this that I do recognise that because of the results here in Tasmania at the last election and the fact that we no longer have any House of Representative seats from this State, that that does cast an additional responsibility onto the shoulders of the Senators from this State. I acknowledge their presence tonight and I particularly thank Jocelyn Newman for the tremendous work that she’s done as the senior Federal Parliamentary representative from Tasmania and one of the most senior Ministers in the Cabinet. She’s had a very, very distinguished and effective career as a Minister and as a senior member on the Liberal frontbench for many years.
Tasmania, of course, has often produced interesting results. I can remember when I first came into Federal Parliament in 1974 there were no representatives from Tasmania in the Federal Parliament on the Liberal side. They were all Labor in 1974. And in 1975 we had a famous by-election which Kevin Newman and Jocelyn and many others will remember - an absolutely famous by-election. And I think we had to go something like 20 years, from 1975 to 1995, before we were to get a by-election, federal by-election the like of it and that was the Canberra by-election which really, if my predecessor couldn’t see the writing on the wall before then, he must surely have seen it that particular night. And we went then from Kevin winning in that by-election in 1975, we won the other four seats in 1975. And then we sort of went through different, other stages and now we’re in a situation where we’re in power, federally, but we don’t hold any House of Representative seats in Tasmania. Such are the vicissitudes of politics and such are the variations that are now occurring in national politics around Australia with results in one State being significantly different from what they are in other States. But that does cast an extra burden on the Senators, it does cast an extra burden on the organisation. I want to say, as Federal Parliamentary leader, I will do all that I can and I will be encouraging my colleagues from the other States to do all they can to assist the organisation here in Tasmania in the challenge that lies ahead.
We are first and foremost an Australian party. We are a party for the entire nation. We are a party that represents the national interest but the national interest is in so many ways the sum of the interests of the individual parts of the Australian federation. And it is very important that we do all we can as a national organisation to assist the Liberal Party organisation here in Tasmania. And I take the opportunity here tonight of pledging myself and my colleagues to do exactly that.
The last thing that I want to say to you, and this in many ways is the most important thing of all, and that is that one of the things that this great victory should, I hope, instruct Liberals to do and to do very emphatically and that is to feel an enormous sense of pride in what the Liberal Party has been able to achieve since it was founded in 1944. I have many critical things to say about the Labor Party. I despise many of the attitudes they have. I am critical of the damage that they have done in their years in government at both a federal and a State level. But I will give them credit for one thing and that is that they have an intense pride in their own history and they have an intense pride in what they believe that they have achieved. And we as Liberals could well emulate that. We as Liberals could do a lot more in boosting our own political achievements over the years. We as Liberals could speak more defiantly and more passionately and more vehemently about what the Liberal Party has achieved for Australia and how the Liberal Party represents the mainstream of the Australian community far more effectively than any other political party in the Australian experience.
And we have been responsible for so many of the great beneficial changes that have come the way of this nation since the end of World War II. We provided, through the Menzies years, the longest period of uninterrupted economic growth that Australia has yet seen. We have seen, over the last two-and-a-half years, a commitment to some of the most fundamental economic reforms that this country has seen. And we have experienced, as a result of that, a capacity to live through the worst of the Asian economic downturn in a way that few would have predicted as recently as a year ago. Because the strength of the Australian economy has shown in the face of the Asian economic holocaust has been absolutely remarkable. And none of that would have been possible if it hadn’t been for the measures that the Government took two-and-a-half years ago, all of which were opposed, root and branch, by our political opponents.
So we have a lot to be proud of, not in an arrogant way, not in a triumphal way, not in a smug or complacent way, but in the sense of quiet achievement and proper satisfaction of a job well done. As Liberals we have an enormously rich history. We have provided great leadership to this country over many years in different circumstances through different people. We have a perfect right as members of that great party to feel a great sense of pride. I feel an enormous sense of privilege and humility to once again be the Prime Minister of our country.
I committed my Government, when it was elected in 1996, to the service of all of the Australian people. I did that again on the 3rd of October of this year when we returned to government. We have much to do, we have an exciting period in Australia’s history ahead of us. We’ll celebrate the Centenary of Federation, we’ll host the Olympic Games. The eyes of the world, in so many ways, will be on Australia. We’ll be able to demonstrate again what an open, egalitarian, tolerant, welcoming and beckoning society we really are. And it will be the Liberal Party that will have the political responsibility for guiding the affairs of our country through those very exciting years. That is not only a source of great excitement and exhilaration to me and my colleagues, it is also a source, I believe, of justifiable pride and satisfaction to all members of the Liberal Party. And as somebody who has devoted all of his life, since the age of 17, to the Liberal Party and to the service of the values and the ideals of the Liberal Party I want to thank you, the rank and file grassroots members of the party, for the contribution that you have made to the successes that we’ve had, the positions we’ve achieved, the elections we’ve won, the values we’ve defended and the country we’ve been privileged to lead. Thank you very, very much and I look forward to addressing you tomorrow.
Thank you.
[Ends]