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I acknowledge the First Australians on whose land we meet, and whose cultures we celebrate as among the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
Today, one hundred years since Andrew Fisher became Prime Minister of Australia, is an excellent opportunity for us to recall an often neglect Prime Minister, who did so much to build the economic, social and defence foundations of our nation.
History has perhaps allowed Fisher to be overshadowed by the larger-than-life personalities of contemporaries like Billy Hughes and Alfred Deakin.
But as a Prime Minister of a country still in its first decade of nationhood, his achievements were remarkable.
And one hundred years on, it's time we give Andrew Fisher his due recognition.
It is often noted that Fisher led the first Labor Government to command a parliamentary majority in any nation in the world.
That is an achievement of historic significance.
As David Day's new biography shows, Fisher's life story really is the stuff of legend - from the grinding poverty of a Scottish coal mining town, to a new life in Australia at age 22, his election to the Queensland State Parliament in 1893 and his elevation to the office of Prime Minister at the age of 46, just 15 years later.
But to Fisher, politics was never just about getting there.
It was about what you did once you'd got there.
Fisher was interested in reform, not just acclaim.
It's his achievements in government that are the most remarkable feature of Andrew Fisher's life:
* as a great nation-builder;
* as a social reformer who helped embed the great tradition of the fair go into the nation's soul. and
* as a strategist for Australia's national defence.
As Clem Lloyd wrote, as Prime Minister Andrew Fisher “embarked on an exhilarating wave of public policy inception, innovation and embellishment, seismic in its dimensions and impact.”
And it's those achievements we can celebrate today.
Fisher's achievements as a nation-builder are nothing short of extraordinary.
His Government established:
* the national capital;
* the transcontinental railway;
* the Commonwealth Bank;
* a national paper currency;
* the reform of Federal/State financial relations by shifting to per capita payments;
* the single penny rate for postage across the nation, and
* the fostering of the arts with a distinctly Australian sensibility.
Many of these ideas had been talked about for years.
Andrew Fisher's great achievement was to turn those ideas into action - bringing a sustained political commitment to the legislative, financial and logistic challenges of national development.
Fisher's legacy is an enduring one.
Consider the establishment of our national capital.
That we even stand today in this building, in this national capital, is in part because of Fisher's legacy.
As Dr David Headon noted last month in his Senate Occasional Lecture, the so-called ‘Battle of the Sites' had raged since the earliest days of the Federation movement, and as the years rolled by, it had increasingly become a war of attrition.
It had engendered intense colonial rivalries and jealousies, with communities across the nation scrambling over each other to promote themselves as the future national capital.
It's extraordinary to think that the nation's founders deliberately searched for the coldest possible locations for the nation's capital - because of a widespread belief that Anglo Saxons and Anglo Celts, as Dr Headon says, “functioned at their best, their British Empire best, in a cold climate” .
Indeed, the West Australian Premier John Forrest had urged that the new capital “ought to be a cool place; indeed the coolest place in Australia”.
Those of us who've survived a few Canberra winters might think this place would have swiftly knocked out any rival towns.
But in fact Canberra wasn't the founders' first choice - there were even colder options.
The first choice of the nation's Parliament in 1904 was in fact the town of Dalgety on the Snowy River.
Not everyone was convinced - Dr Headon notes that one Queensland MP spent a few nights in Dalgety and warned its winds were so fierce that if you ventured outside in winter had to hang on for dear life.
Another MP warned Dalgety was so freezing cold that it would “kill half of the older men”.
In any event, Dalgety was not to be.
The NSW Government refused to hand over the land at Dalgety, and demanded a site closer to Sydney.
What followed was four more years of investigations, arguments and tours of possible sites across NSW by Federal MPs.
This didn't end until Andrew Fisher became Prime Minister and settled the question of the nation's capital - recognising how important it was to the nation's future.
Fisher himself was not an early advocate for the Canberra site - as he said in introducing the Seat of Government Act to the Parliament, his preference had been the town of Dalgety.
But he recognised that a nation needed a capital, and he wanted the question settled.
Just a few weeks into Fisher's first term, Parliament passed the Seat of Government Act - and Australia at last had that capital.
And Fisher's Government got on with the job of building the new capital, overcoming opposition from among his own Senators to provide the funding to get the new capital going.
Fisher's successful establishment of the Commonwealth Bank was another great major nation-building achievement.
After the widespread collapse of financial institutions in the 1890s Depression, Labor had strongly advocated the establishment of a national bank.
But this only became a reality when Fisher delivered the parliamentary majority at the 1910 election that made this initiative possible.
Fisher also played a key role in making sure the new Commonwealth Bank was effective, personally recruiting a highly experienced banker to establish the new institution.
The Commonwealth Bank improved Australia's financial and economic self-reliance, making it easier for Australian businesses to borrow and for the Government to obtain a source of cheap loan funds, independent of the English banks.
The Commonwealth Bank also guaranteed the security of bank deposits, as well as making Australia less reliant on English banks for future borrowing needs.
Another major nation-building achievement of the Fisher Government was the transcontinental railway across Australia, a piece of national economic infrastructure that connected the east to the west.
The transcontinental railway had been talked about for many years.
Indeed Western Australia had sought to include in the federal Constitution a provision relating to its construction by the Commonwealth.
But it was not until Fisher that the talk ended and the action began - with the Commonwealth authorising construction of the railway through the Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta Railway Act in 1911, and then financing its construction.
The nation-building agenda strengthened the Australia's economic base, built foundations for future prosperity and fostered a sense of national identity in a nation that had been in existence for little over a decade.
Fisher's extensive social reforms are a second enduring legacy of his time in office.
Fisher believed that national governments had an important role in overcoming injustice and building a fairer society for working people and for all the people who would otherwise fall through the cracks.
Fisher campaigned vigorously for the age pension throughout his political career.
When Deakin as Prime Minister adopted a lesser version of the age and invalid pension plan than Fisher had been advocating, Fisher put politics to one side and supported Deakin's plan.
Pragmatically deciding that half a loaf was better than none for Australians unable to work and without means, Labor joined with Deakin's Liberals and the Invalid and Old-Age Pensions Act became law in 1908.
Importantly, Fisher tackled the problem of broadening the Commonwealth revenue base - the challenge that for almost a decade had prevented the establishment of the age pension.
The result was that in July 1909, Prime Minister Andrew Fisher presided over the introduction of an age pension for women over 60 and men over 65 - a great and enduring social reform.
Fisher also fought for decent workers' compensation throughout his parliamentary life - a deeply personal fight for him, after he had lost his brothers James and Robert in mining accidents and his father had contracted black lung disease.
Just as he had championed workers' compensation legislation in the Queensland Parliament, as Prime Minister Fisher secured the passage of the first Commonwealth Workmen's Compensation Act in 1912.
Fisher was also strongly committed to advancing the role of women. Earlier in his career he had strongly supported women's suffrage - a cause to which Margaret Fisher also gave prominent support when she participated in a suffragette's march while visiting London in 1911.
In office, Prime Minister Fisher introduced the first ‘baby bonus' or maternity allowance in the nation's history - a payment designed to help women with the medical cost of a doctor or midwife at childbirth, thus reducing the risks to both mother and baby.
These measures - for working people, for mothers, for the aged, sick and injured - all reflected the strength of the Fisher Government's commitment to social reform and building a fairer society.
A third enduring contribution of the Fisher Government was its role in planning for the defences of the young Australian nation.
Fisher worried deeply about potential security threats to Australia, a concern reflect in his first cabinet meeting as Prime Minister where he undertook to take the lead on defence policy.
The establishment of an Australian navy had been part of Labor's platform since 1902.
Fisher vigorously pursued the aim of an Australian navy under Australian control.
He rejected the widely held belief that the Royal Navy would always be there to protect Australia.
He wasn't anti-British - indeed, he is famous for his pledge that Australia would defend Britain “to our last man and our last shilling” - and he accepted the Admiralty's wartime control of the Australian fleet.
But he understood that the new Australian nation needed to take responsibility for its national defence.
That is why he established Royal Australian Navy.
The Fisher Government introduced compulsory military training, a step that substantially strengthened the Commonwealth armed force.
Fisher opened the Royal Military College at Duntroon in 1911, following the recommendations of Lord Kitchener review of Australia's defence in 1910 initiated by the Deakin Government in 1909.
The Fisher Government also approved the first funding for military aviation training in 1911.
Fisher also appointed the first chief of Australia's general staff, Colonel William Bridges - a soldier whose death from injuries at Gallipoli underscored the gravity of Australia's losses in the war.
With this record of achievement, it is significant that when the First World War broke out during the 1914 election campaign, Australia turned to Fisher and Labor for leadership.
All up, Fisher had less than five years in office. The obstacles he faced were huge - yet his achievements were prodigious.
He faced war, reluctant coalition partners, financial constraints and a government with still relatively limited infrastructure.
Yet he led one of the most productive and industrious governments in Australian history.
As he set out from Gympie for the first sitting of Australia's new national Parliament in 1901, Fisher had told his local supporters that he had “one aim in life”:
“to assist to the best of his ability in making the Australian people the most happy and prosperous on the face of the earth.”
Fisher didn't achieve everything he aspired to.
But he did fulfil this one, simple, noble, aim.
And he left a rich legacy in so doing.
A hundred years later, it's time we rediscovered it, and gave Fisher and his achievements the recognition they so justly deserve.