Thank you Andrew, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. I am really delighted to be part of this little event, to congratulate Andrew and Mitch and the people who've contributed to the first edition of this publication - not only for the quality of their contributions but also for the concept of quite openly and unselfconsciously promoting greater debate about issues within our own party. That to me is a mark of strength, it's not evidence of political ill-discipline. I think it's very important that that be said, because Andrew is absolutely correct that the debate about ideas and the power of debate about ideas is ultimately the most crucial influence in politics.
And I illustrate that by tracing my own and the experience of others in one of the defining political and economic debates of the last quarter of a century and that is on industrial relations. I would argue that a number of us from Opposition, and I hope not too hubristically would include myself in it, did more to influence the industrial relations debate, as much to influence it from Opposition as we have from Government. We will argue for a long time as to just how significant the changes that were made by the Hawke and Keating Governments in the early 90s in this area were, I don't think they were as significant as many argued. But the debate at that time was driven by the Opposition and it was heavily influenced by the incessant debating of that issue. And the history of industrial relations debate in the Liberal Party is a fascinating one. In 1975, the Liberal and then National Country Parties went to an election with a policy that actually encouraged people to join trade unions, encouraged people to support centralised wage fixation and if you now re-read that policy you would find it unrecognisable from the statement I made on behalf of the Coalition parties to Parliament only a few weeks ago. And that was not surprising because in 1967 or 1968 Sir Robert Menzies made a number of lectures, delivered a number of lectures in the United States, and I hope I don't do our great and revered founder an injustice in saying that the thrust of what he said on industrial relations was that we in Australia determine these matters through an independent industrial conciliation and arbitration commission because they were too important to be left to the workings of the market. Now that of course is a world away from the view of the Government parties at the present time.
But the other thing that makes this publication welcome is that our party has always been the trustee or custodian in Australia of two strands of political philosophy - the classical Liberal strand and the conservative strand. I describe, as you all know, you've heard me say it occasionally, I'll say it again, that broad church and I said on the way in to a couple of my colleagues that I thought flipping through these articles every pew was occupied with the different view points that have been expressed. But I say that very seriously, and it's one of the enormous strengths of our party that we do represent those two traditions and I have quite deliberately described myself, and I am, I'm an economic liberal and I'm a social conservative, I have been for a very long time and I always will be. Others of my colleagues are of different combinations of those two, but there is room in the Party for that range of views. And it's all the more important that we provide that room and we work our way through issues and we debate them and we reach a collective view, respecting that along the way there is going to be differences of opinion, but in a mature fashion, and we have seen that process work in relation to this debate about immigration detention, we've seen it work. I regard what has occurred there as the fact of a mature, strong political party, not the act of a political party that is frightened of its shadow but rather a political party that is quite prepared to say that consistent with maintaining a very strong position on the regulation of the flows of people of this country there can be greater transparency and some changes, and to do it in a fairly open and unselfconscious fashion.
Now I think that is important, there will be other issues that will, the longer we remain in office, will confront us as a government. The time that governments lose their relevance and the time they begin to lose the support of the public is when they give up on the battle of ideas and entirely embrace criticism of their opponents and self-adulation about their past achievements. And the greatest challenge that any government has, the longer it remains in office, is intellectual renewal and intellectual renewal is produced by open debate, underpinned of course by cohesion and discipline, it's also underpinned and helped by a constant infusion of new and talented people into our parliamentary ranks.
And the greatest single process to that process that both of the major political parties face is that as party membership shrinks around the country, as you perhaps have fewer people joining political parties there's always a danger that the gene pool will become too shallow and we have been able to avoid that occurring in the Liberal Party and I am especially proud in looking at the occupational backgrounds of my colleagues who have joined us in 2001 and 2004 to look at the remarkable spread and if I may be forgiven one partisan broadside, contrast that with our political opponents. In fact, the Labor Party I faced from Opposition in 1974 was in fact a Labor Party that had a greater collection of people who experienced life's up and downs than the Labor Party of today. After all Mick Young and Clyde Cameron had shorn a few sheep and they did know a little bit about it all and that is a far cry from the experience of articulating the cause of your mates on the shopfloor having been there with them and articulating them from the theoretical vantage point having gone straight from university into the union office. But enough of that unkindness, we should on a joyous occasion like this, not indulge such things.
But Andrew and Mitch and for all who write and think and conceptualise with you, thank you for the contribution that you make. You never know there may be other contributions, but to borrow, no I won't borrow that phrase about thousands of flowers, although perhaps not inappropriate, but let a thousand ideas bloom and we'll see what happens but it's to the strength and the credit of the Liberal Party that it can quite happily have a publication like this, can invite debate and I want to thank you Andrew with your background and the contribution that you made as Federal Director and the contribution you made to the debate about industrial relations and your understanding of that issue, and to you Mitch, your professional experience, your working at a state political level and then at a federal level on Peter's staff and the contribution you've made, you understand the importance of disciplined argument and the development of ideas. And I think it's a great publication and I thank you very warmly and I wish it well.
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