LIBERAL PARTY RALLY
AT WAYVILLE
MONDAY, 13TH FE13RUARY. 1961
Speech by the Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. R. G. Menzies.
Sir Mr. Premier, parliamentary colleagues and ladies and
genllemen: I think I must indulge myself in the luxury of making
just one reference to what has just fallen from the lips of the
Premier. He says that with one exception, not myself, the
Prime Ministers with whom he has dealt have been very tough. All
I can say to you is they needed to be! ( Laughter, applause)
But although we have been as tough as we could I
think we have been just, as might be demonstrated without much
difficulty if we were discussing that kind of thing.
Now I want to tell you that I regard this as the most
astonishing meeting I have ever seen. When they told me that we
would have a rally in this Hall, I thought that this was the
triumph of hope over experience to get thousands of people
into one place, and particularly to got them into one place at
one time. Therefore I find this a very, very inspiriting
occasion. And I think it is an occasion, as a rally of our
Party, to state, as compactly as I can, what our faith is and
what we are doing about it-and to explain to you some of the
things in recent times that may seem to be a little mysterious.
I want to do that because it is said and said repeatedly, that
we have a changing policy I think I remember the expression
" stop and go" that we change our minds very frequently. I
mention this to you because there is also a school of thought to
the effect that we don't know up at Canberra what is going on;
and that we are insulated from public opinion. Don't you
believe it we hear quite a lot of it. And one of the things
we hear is that the Governrent doesn't know its own mind: it
introduces a Budget; it introduces, a few months latert some
supplementary measures. This, of course, couldn't happen in a
well-governed country; and doesn't happen, presumably, in other
countries. The fact that in Great Britain the mothar country of
our race, with enormous financial and economic problems, the
Bank rate, which is their controlling mechanism for the economy
goes up, goes down again two months later, goes up three months
later, comes down six weeks later appears to escape the notice
of people. Now why is it that changes havo to be made? I think I
am going to demonstrate to you tonight that we, on your behalf,
as Liberals of this country, have had and retain a constant
policy; but that we have enough intelligence to know that a
constant policy must be applied to changing circumnstances and
must not pretend that the circumstances have not changed, In
ether words a constant policy with variable applications to
changing circumstances. Of course there were simpler days. I think I was
reminding a fine audienco at lunch time that back at a period
not remembered by half the population of Australia, or two
thirds, at a period 30 years ago, when we had a great depression
in Australia and whlere genuine distress on a great scale swept
ever the country, we had, early in 1933, 30% of unemployment in
Australia. Think of it 3016. Then it canie down to
And the Lyons Goverrmeont cane in. It introduced a sense of
Atability, a senso of belief and confidence in the country-and
it remained thaere for a long time. But by the time the Lyons
Government itself came to an end we still had 10% of the work
force of Australia unemployed. And this was regarded as
something so remarkable compared with what had happened th4t the
people of Australia accepted it.
Now, of course if you live in a comunity which is
prepared to accept 10 or 9 or 8 or 7 or 6% of unemployment as a
commonplace, as they do in the United States, as indeed they do
a good deal of the time in Canada then the business of
Government becomes easy. But justice to the community becomes
inadequate. AInd we stand for justice to the community.
Therefore we have set as our goal theo maintenance of an
extraordinarily high level of employmient in Australia. ( Applause)
If we had not done that, if we were living in the prewar
period as I gather some of our critics think we are we
would. not be worried about 2 or 3 or of unemployment, because
this would be something that the community would accept. But
today, this nation stands committed to a policy of full
employment not over-full employment with its rising costs and
its excessive overtime and its rapid labour turnover; nor
material unemployment with its social injustice and its human
bitterness. We stand for a policy which requires a fine balance.
Now I emphasise that to you. This requires a fine balance to
have your people employed; not to have the relative economic
disaster of unfilled jobs so that work doesn't go on adequately;
not to have the social disaster of unfilled stomachs in decent
homes, Now whatever the so-called experts may say, when you
hpaovlei cya wphoilcichy iwsh itcheh mroesqtu irdeisf fiac uflitn e thbianlga ncien, thteh enw oyrolud thoa vem aiantain.
Figuratively speaking if one wanted to go across Niagara Falls in
the old days when there was plenty of room for manoeuvre and
somiebody built a nice wide bridge, it would be quite easy.' You
could wander from side to side of the bridge, you had plenty of
room. But a finely balanced policy requires that you should walk
the tight-rope like Blondin. And Blondin, I am credibly
informed, though he wasn't one of my intimate friends, managed to
maintain himself on a tight rope by a vast series of moves to
right and left to preserve the balance.
Now that is a metaphorical expression, but I think it
will convey to you what I have in my mind. Because if the idea
is full employment, full employment in the presence of enormous
national developm~ ent, of a vast immigration programme of all
the problems that are associated with a rising population, it is
not a policy that can be maintained by stupid people who, having
said in August, " That's our policy for the next 12 months",
leave it alone. The circumstances change; something happens.
So far as I am concerned, I will always regard myself as your
leader and as your Prime Minister, not only at liberty, but
compelled to make whatever changes from time to time may be
necessary in order to maintain the central policy that we stand
for. ( Applause) Now, Sir, let mie remind everybody here of what our
po'licy is, this constant policy. Because I emphasise that the
policy is constant.
. At home we have for 11 years by the time of the next
election 12 years continuously stood for national development
to the limit of our physical resources. If anybody cares to
look around lustralia and com-pare it with what it was 11 years
ago, it must be admnitted that the development in this country has
been fabulous. ( Applause)
You know it is the old story. If we see people every
day we don't seo much change in them. Some people see me
occasionally having seen me almost every day, and they say,
" By jove, old nan you're looking well". But evary now and then
I run across a fellow who hasn't seen me for ten years and he has
quite a different story. You see he sees the changes after' an
interval of a decade; whereas other people whi-are on the mat,
so to speak, constantly, do not.
But I occasionally speak to people from overseas,
people with great affairs -to consider and to conduct and without
exception they say to no, " I wouldn't have believed that I could
see such a change in a country in ten years". Well of courses
I didn't do it; you didn't do it. But somebody did~ it. The
people of Australia did it. And the people of Australia would
not have thought fit to do it unless Government had been
sufficiently sensible and sufficiently encouraging to develop
the climate in which this great growthi would occur. This has
been the most remarkable decade of developmient in the history of
Australia. A" nd if, after the next election, for some reason or
other, the people of Australia decide that they want to entrust
their fortunes to the Calwells and the Wards and the Cairnses
and so on, all right! That will be their choice. I donft think
they will make it. But at any rate, so far as I am concerned I
will look back with pride on what has occurred. ( Applause)
Now behind national development we believe in large
immigration as an aid to national development. There again
people can simplify things. They can say, " But of course, that's
elementary". It isn't elementary. Every time you have a little
flurry of unemployment in one place or another, you will hear
somebody say " tWe must cut down on immigration". We have
believed, ana. believe, that the flow of good people, with a
variety of cultures and experiences, and backgrounds into this
country is giving to us a strength, a vigour, a-variety of minds
which we would never otherwise have acquired. We believe that
a large movement of immigration into Australia is of the essence
of national development.
I know there are some people I think there are some
sitting'on the other side of the House who think that what we
ought to do in Australia is to wrap our garments about us and
live in a state of splendid isolation, keeping all imports out,
isolating ourselves from the affairs of the world, not letting
all these strange people come in. What sort of a notion is
this, of a great nation?
Why, before the war I think I have said this to you
before we wore told by exports that e would never have a
population of more than 7j million in Australia; and that it
would take until 1975 to reach that point; and that in the
meantime we would be Lgetting older and older. Of course I
would, you would this is the law of life. But what they told
us was that the percentage of old people would grow; and the
percentage of young earning, contributing people would fall.
Now that was the doia of 1938 23 years ago.
And today, are we looking forward to having 7j million
in 1975? On the contrary! We have 10-2k millions already. And
what we will have in 1975 I leave to your imagination. So far
from having a structure of society in which more and more old
people will be supported by less and less young people the
period from 1960 to 1970 is -, oing to be a decade in which the
avrae age of the community will fall, in whiich more and rmore
young people will be available as a percentage of the community,
to build to construct, to support. That means that the decad6
from 1966 to 1970 will alimOst inevitably be a greater periodof
development in A1ustralia than the decade from 1950 to 1960. I
0 4.
find this a stimulating idea.
" Bliss was it in that dawrn to bc alive,
But to be young was very heaven! 1
This is a period of time in which you and I tonight
merely pause in this developmeont, to recapture a decent
satisfaction with the last ton years; and to kindle our
imagination about the next ten years.
tie have had in this tine, as part of our policy,
increased production, industrial peace, which, in spite of a few
sporadic outbursts, has never boon , Yreater than it has been in
the last ten years.
But all these things national development, the
demand for capital, the demand for great public works, necessary
public works, the growth of the population the search for
increased production plus full , mploymenl have to be achieved,
if we are to do our best, without creating an inflationary boom.
You can have them all without trouble if you don't mind
inflation. But they all put a pressure on human and financial
and economic resources which will of course produce an
inflationary boom unless every now and then a Government has the
elementary courage to take a ' Lew stops to restrain it.
Our policy has meant adequate social services; it has
mecant adequate modern defence; it has meant, in spite of
cynical onlookers, a considerable restraint upon the level of
taxation. But it has, of course, included in all these things
in this modern and complicated world, credit and currency
controls to achieve growth with stability and to do justice to
the demands for capital for public undertakings and capital for
private business and industrial expansion.
I want to pause to say a word about that. One of our
troubles is that when we look at these difficult matters we
occasionally like to draw a hard line of distinction between one
thing or another that's black, or that's white; that's right
or * that's wrong. find the result is that you will hear people
say quite earnestly that the great conflict in the demand for
capital for development is a conflict between the Government and
private business. I want to say to you it is nothing of the kind
You consider what the public works are; you look at
your own State and see the works that have been carried out.
Take, by way of example, one that I know something about
because the Commonwealth found the money for it: that is the
railway line through Leigh Creek to Maree. Without this line,
without the developments that occur in those circumastances the
use of coal in South Australia, its own coal, would have been
restricted; it would have been i:,, ore difficult to produce power.
And without power how would the private business expansion in
the States get on? It is a single, simple example.
I can hardly think of a solitary public work conducted
by either Commonwealth or State and between us we conduct a
public works programme which runs up to the better part of
œ 400 million a year I can hardly imagine one element in it
which does not provide the essential foundation for private
business expansion. How can any man expand a factory? How can any man
go in for some great new enterprise unless he has power at his
elbow, water supply, transport, housing schools? All these
things represent the great public works programme of the State
and of the Commonwealth.
The two things are completely complementary. And I beg
of you to put out of your mind this idea that there is some
conflict between them. Because I believe that you must add the
two of them together to find out how the country goes on.
On top of all that we have as our constant polloy the
expansion and the diversification of our exports; and I will say
a word to you about this. Unless wo can export more, unless we
can find new markets in the world, unless we can add to the export
of wool and meat and wheat, the export of the products of our
factories, then we :-re going to have trouble about our balances of
payments, probably for the rest of my life. Not constant but
fluctuating sometimes better, sometimes worse.
I said somcthing about this today to an audience of
business men. It is vital that we should all bond our energies to
developing exports from this country, because the plain truth is
that every now and then and this year is one of them we find
ourselves spending more money overseas than we are earning. And
therefore we are drawing on our accumulated capital overseas to
pay our current debts. That is bad business, and the Liberal
Party stands not for bad business, but for good sounmd national
business. Therefore if w~ e are to solve thiis problem in the long
run we must earn more.
Those many of you who remember the events of the
will agree with me that we took thte whole shock of the world
depression flat in the face because our principal means and
almost our only means of survival lay in the products el the
farms and pastures of the country. When wool went down to what
was it? 6d. or 7d. a lb., some fantastic pric3; and when wheat
was down to 1/ 9d. a bushel just think of it of course we were
almost defenceless against this blow. We had to shorten sail;
we had to cut everybody down; we had to reduce pensions in
Australia; and reduce pay; and ride the storm out. As a
nation Australia learned something from thiat, and we developed
more and more our manufactures.
When I first used to discuss this State with Sir Thomas
Playford, which was very early in my history but quite late in
his, because he has been Premier for a long, long timae ( Applause)
I remember saying to him, " If South Australia is ever to cease to
be a ' claimant' State we must do something to develop its economic
balance". In other words we raust get secondary industries into
it. Under my own first Government we put munitions establishmients
into this State which were thie nucleus -around which one of the
most remarkable industrial developments in Australia has
developed. The result is that South Australia is not a ' claimant'
State any longer; it is a balanced community.
That is a mere microcosm of the fact that in Australia
we have become a balanced cormmunity. W'e are now a highly
industrialised nation. Wie still get a shock when thea price of
wool falls, of course. But it is not so fatal ' a shock as it
would be if we did not have all this vast area of industrial
employment and activity to fall back on. If we are going to
maintain that position we must take every conceivable step, not
only to increase our markets for the normal things that we grow,
but to create great new markets for those things that we
manufacture in our factories; things that we can make with no
less skill than the people of the United States or the people of
the United Kingdom.
Now, internally, those represent, broadly, our constant
policies. I would not mind being cross-examined about them
before the Bar of history, because I th[, ink that over thiis decade
we ca-n demonstrate a remarkable degree of success in the
carrying out of those policies.
But there is also the problem abroad. Just let me say
a few words about it. What is our policy, our Liberal policy
in relation to the world? Well, first of all it is a policy of
the maintenance and cultivation of friendship. That sounds very
simple, doesn't it? The maintenance and cultivation of
friendship in aid of peace and in aid of our own national
security. It is very easy to quarrel with othor nations. When
we came back into office at the ond of ). 949 Australia had
succeeded in having some quarrels with the United States of
America and with the United Kingdom. We.-have resolved all
those things. The fact is that this country enjoys a quality of
friendship with the United States, with all the countries of the
Commonwealth, never previously surpassed in our history. We
believe that we must, as a nation, jointly with other people,
resist aggressive communism whother it is European or Asian.
Well we haven't just talked about it. Ve have made a
powerful contribution to the strcangthoning of Commonwealth
relations, British Commocnwealth relations. We ours-elves were
the creators of the Colorabo Plan which has brought enormous help
and satisfaction to many Asian countries. We were I think I
should say, properly, the chief proponents of the tINZUS Pact
with the United States and with Now Zealand. Wo are a foundation
member and an active member of the South East Asia Treaty
Organisation. When somebody says to y,. u " Have you a policy on
foreign affairs?" pray, remind themi Lat these things have been
done by us not one of them had been dreamed of before,
Of course if you are to live in t'ie world with
satisfaction, with honour, with credit in an economic sense then
you must not only add to your exports as and when you can, but
you must restrain inflation at home. Nobody wants to invest
his mioney in an economy which is falling away. You must?
therefore, maintain conditions which will attract imports of
productive capital.
Now don't think that this is a dry matter, please.
Whatever may have been said about previous Labour Governments,
the present Labour Opposition at Canberra is violently opposed
to the investment of foreign capital in Australia. It loses no
opportunity of complaining about it. And when I say " foreign
capital" I m. ean for this purpose not my words capital from
the United Kingdom which represents, so far, the bulk of these
investments, and capital from the United States of America.
Now this is worth thinking about. I undertake to say that
there are a few " crocodile" tears being shed in Labour circles
today about people who are being paid off unhappily, from
certain car manufacturing industries. Bu I remind you that ffthu
Labour view about not importing capital from overseas had
prevailed, the factories would not be there in most case8 and
there wouldn't be any people employed to be paid off. It is
just as well to remem~ ber that. They are against it.
I rem,. ember with some satisfaction that about six or
seven years ago it was possible to stand on a platform in
Adelaide or in Melbourne or somewhere else and say that our
stability, our policies, our repute, our credit, were such that
about : COO million a year was being invested in Australia for
productive enterprises by private people not by Governmaent
and that this maeant everything to us in employment and in
growth. Last year it was over œ C200 million. I wonder what
would happen to us if a Goverrnmeint camo in which did not enjoy
this credit and repute abroad. It is worth thinking about.
Indeed while I ani on that topic it nighIt not be a bad
idea if I suggested to you that occasionally the onlooker sees
a good deal of the gane. We are pretty close to it. If we have
look at Governmient policy as private citizens we naturally tend
to look at it as it affects us at this myom~ ent. And that is
hum~ an nature; that is inevitable. Governm~ ents have to accept
that as a fact, but not to be unduly swayed by it because they
have a general responsib) ility to the whole nation.
But people outside, looking at us, occasionally see
sonething and say something worth recording. Now in the city
of New York I am going to weary you with one passage there
is a very great financial body knowrn as the Enpire Trust
Company. Many business non hero will be quite familiar with
its name. And the D7pire Trust Company publishes, periodically,
a circular which goes around the city of New York and into all
the great financial hcjuses. A number of ny friends in New
York who are by no neans small mon in the financial world
hastened to send no a print of this last circular published in
January. Could I road you a little bit? It is a first class
sui-nary of what our policy has been in the financial world,
It says " Because of the swiftly rising level of business
activity which began in 1959 the Coomronwoolth authorities"
that is the Australian Coiamonwedth-
" undertook a mu~ lti-pronged attack on inflation ( You will
renenber these measures) relaxa~ tion of inport restrictions,
intervention in the February, 1960 Basic Wage hearing which
resulted in the refusal of the Airbitration Commission to
grant increases, and tightened credit by the Reserve Bank.
This programme was supplemented by provision for a small cash
surplus in the 1960/ 61 Budget wherein Commonwealth taxes
were raised a total of Q37 millions, a major contribution to
which was a rise in the corporation tax rate from 37e, to
Despite these moves the Australian economy continued
to expand so vigorously in 1960 that further anti-inflationary
measures were found necessary. The Commonwealth Treasurer"
that is my much abused colleague, Harold Holt, who, after all,
speaks for all of us
" announced on November 15th last new and particularly
courageoussteps"
just think of it: this is what they say in New York-
" which in the main consist of the following: still tighter
Bank credit restrictions, with particular emphasis on
curbing loans for speculative purposes, the limitation of
interest deductions for income tax up to the amount claimed
last year, interest on new issues of convertible notes will
not be deductible for income tax purposes, the maximum bank
lending rate raised from 6 to and the Sales Tax on motor
vehicles from 30 to
Then they go on
" Recent indications suggest that the financial spiral in
Australia has begyun to abate, paving the way for continued
strong growth under somewhat steadier conditions. The
vigour and despatch with which the Australian authorities
attacked the problem has not gone unnoticed in ovorsoas
financial centres". ( Applause)
Now, Sir, I read that passage to you with a certain
satisfaction. In all these policies I think we have had a
considerable success. And interestingly enough the poople of
Australia have thought so. They thought so in 149and in ' 51,
and in 154' and in ' 55 and in ' 58. In fact they thought so
more in ' 56 than they did in 14+ 9 bocause we had a record
majt. lie have had all these rises in development, 7 in
overseas investment. The growth in production which is, of
course, of primary importance in Australia has been phenomenal.
I haven't tine to give you a lot of examples of this but I
suppose there will be some of you, at least, who will remember
that back twelve years ago we were greatly troubled about coal
we weren't getting production. In m.-any industrial centres they
had blackouts, power was cut off. We udero told that of course
' you couldn't do any good in the coal world because theo coal
miner was a difficult fellow'. The production of black coal
during the time of my Government has risen, in actual terms,
from 14+ million tons a year to 21 million tons a year. The
production of steel in Australia and the production of power has
gone up almost thrkue times in the course of this period. Of
course we didn't do all this with our own fair hands. But we
set out to do our best to create an atmosphere of freedom, and
of growth, and of enterprise in Australia which would bring
these things about. And they have happened.
Now, Sir, I turn away from that to put one question to
you. I think that if the people of Australia had been asked
twelve months ago let us go back twelve m~ onths to the time
when I couldn't walk down the street without people saying ' Good
on you' whether they could have done as well in A" ustralia-I
an talking now of Coraonwealth matters under the Evatts
Calwells, W-ards, Cairnses, they would have said MNoll Well what
has happened? Do they now believe that in the last few months,
after years of what I venture to describe as succossfuliganity,
we have suddenly gone mad?
Don't take your view from a few extravagantly critical
publications because they have said all these things before
today; and we have happened to survive them., Just look at the
facts and work the facts out for yourself.
Now what happened after the policy that we announced
at the beginning of 1960? What happened after that as it was
described " four-pronged" policy of February of last year which
I venture to say had the warm approval of sensible people all
over Australia. Well things did not come out exactly as we
expected themi, or hoped them to do. In the first place the
price of wool fell away still further. Now that is a major
element in our economy. In the second place bank advances which
were expected to increase by the merest small fraction increased
between then and November by about œ-150 million. I don't say
that critically of the Banks; but they increased because of this
enormious demand for imiports proceeding from an almost record
possession of purchasing power in the home corriunity a
purchasing power which, not being satisfied by internal
production, reached out and sought for im~ ports, The result was
that by last November our reserves overseas were running down
and runnini down at a very fast rate. Bank advancus were up;
bank liquidity, looking to the futuro, found itself with a
problem in front of it. WUhat were we to do? We had announced
that we would budget for a surplus; we did. We did all these
other things that have been referred to about the Basic Wage
enquiry. But in spite of all those things up went bank
advances; and there was an enormous increase in expenditure.
An analysis of-it showed that there were certain fields in which
that process bad roached its culminating point.
Now I an a great boliever in the motor car industry in
Australia and so are yoiu, in South. Australia. And well you
night be. It has been a great and valuable industry to
Australia. But if you are having an inflationary boon in your
owm country you just can't turn your eyes away from the places
that are helping to produce the boom, places where some
restraint, for a time, may be necessary.
By October of last year registration of new cars, new
rioter vehicles rather, in Australia, had reached the level
mest of you won't believe it of 1,000 per working day! I can
go back to a tine when there were no motor cars manufactured in
Australia. There were some riotor bodies, built here, and some in
Melbourne but there were no motor cars built. We were told you
could. not have a m~ otor manufacturing industry in Australia,
because the volume of demand would not be great enough. And here
we were with a thousand cars a day coning on to the registry.
Our imports into Australia and it is imports that
eat up our overseas balances which the previous year had been
œ C150 million had risen to œ-200 rmillion at a time at which our
wool cheque had fallen by rathor a greater amount than that.
You see these are the sort of facts that have to be
looked at by a Government. You do not want a Liberal
Government to look facts in the eye and then run away from them.
Therefore we concluded that if we were going to restrain this
inflationary pressure which pushes up the price level, which
does injustice to people on fixed incomes, then we must look at
what the sources of the pressure were and do something about the.
Take another instance the demand for capital. You
know ladies and gentlemen there is one odd thing about public
works you have to pay for them! These wretched fellows who
are contractors on big works, they like being paid; and they
like being paid in hard cash. Therefore you must get the hard
cash. Now in the good old days a Loan Council net, it decided
to borrow œ 20 or œ F30 million, whatever it might, and it borrowed
it. The Commonwealth got a little share of it in those days;
and the rest went round.
Since I cane back into office we have had no share, as
a Com~ onwealth, in the loan market. Nor can the loan market
find all the money that is needed for public works. The fact is
that we have had to carry not because we like it, but because
we thought it had to be done a substantial percentage of the
cost of public works on the Commonwealth budget. That doesn't
make us very popular, you know. Over the last nine years 1+ 01
of State works programmeis have been financed from the Commonwealth
Budget. If you add our own works programe 601, of all
the Government I mean Corimnonwalh and State works in
Australia have been found, in terms of cash, out of the
Commf~ onweal th Budget. I don't omuplain about it. I think it was
right. I think that without that, this country could not have
developed. But I want to remind you that if we had decided to
be a little stiff, a little academic on these matters and had
said, " No, we are not going to spend revenue on works; we'll
just confine ourselves to the loan money that the p) eople will let
us have", we could have reduced taxation of course; we could
have been incredibly popular, of course; and AuMstralia would
have stood stock still for the last ton years.
I think that there is just one further aspect of that
matter that I might refer to. That is that one of the reasons
why Commonwealth loans, which we raise on behalf of the States
and ourselves under the Financial Agreement have not been able
to absorb as much m.-oney as we needed has been the competition in
Aiustr-ali-a-between -Government borrowings and private borrowings
at fancy-rates of interest you are familiar with it. Open a
newspaper any day and you will m. arvel to see how many people are
yearning to collect your money at ten per cent or nine per cent
or eight per cent interest for three months, 7 or six months, or
twelve months or two years. This is , ood; that is what they
call mney for jam~. But you only have to have enough scores of
millions, or hundreds of millions, finding their way into that
kind of investment, to find that the Government Loan Account is
getting dry. And if the Government Loan Account is getting dry,
then you must knock off the works, which nobody proposes to do
because that is knocking off national growth, or you must getth
money in the first instance out of the taxpayer's pocket.
Therefore, on this occasion -I have no doubt to the
great dissatisfaction of some people we have done something
about the fancy rates of interest. We have provided in a
temporary measure, that it is no longer going to be taken that if
you pay 10j% on a short term borrowing, you are going to be
allowed the whole 10% as an income tax deduction that lovely
day has to come to an end.
And we asked ourselves " Can we any longer accept the
proposition that an enterprise can raise money by what it is
pleased to call " convertible notes" which are really another
form of capital " and deduct, before income tax is calculated,
the whole cost of the interest on the convertible notes?". These
are technical matters. But business men in this audience tinight
will understand, and I am sure that they will agree, that no
Government seeking to correct this imbalance between public works
and public enterprise the essential of national development
could stand by and allow these other factors to stand in the way
of serving the interests of the public, and of protecting the
position of the taxpayer. '-do are all taxpayers, and what the
other man dodges, we pay. That is worth thinking about.
Novi, Sir, I know that what I have said to you is, in
many cases, dry, no doubt. What I have really been trying to say
to you is: When you look at all these things, think first of
what our ;-reat national policies are. As Liberals, be proud of
those policies and be proud of what they have done for Australia.
When you look at the application of these policies, I hope that
you will always have in mind that you expect from Liberal
leaders in politics, intelligence, flexibility of mind a
willingness to do unpopular things occasionally, a pref'erence in
their own minds, as I have in mine, for the respect of the
people rather than for easy applause and popularity. I venture
to say that when it is well understood what oes on, that when
the result of this medicine begins to appear, and people realise
that the balances of payments are improving, that the run-down is
coming to an end, that we are getting back once more into a state
of stability. they may still retrospectively have a few harsh
things to say about harsh things that were done to them but thor
will respect the Government. And no Government that is respected
is beaten. Therefore I say to you all Thank you very much. It is
a marvellous thing to see so many of you; it is a wonderful
thing for people like myself, looking at these matters constantly,
anxiously, day by day, to know that there are thousands of people
outside who, though occasionally they are mystified by what you
do, have deep down in them the belief that our political faith
of Liberalism is one of utter integrity and honesty, and of
imagination. And that those who lead us are fit to be trusted by
us with the carrying out of this naL~ nificent adventure in the
growth of A1ustralia. ( Applauso)