CIVIC WELOOM AT NARRABRI TOWN HALL
29TH SEPTEMBR. 1961
SPEECH BY THE PRIM MINISTER. THE RT, HON. R. G. MENZIES
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Deputy President, and ladies and gentlemen, and boys and girls
I live a most peculiar life, quite crasy. I left the office at 20 to 1
today and have to be back home in time for dinner, on peril of expulsion from q own
house everybody will understand that. Wherever I go in Australia if I am driving
through a town that is big, or a town that is little, or a town that is middle sise,
I see som Hall and I say, in a gloating fashion, " I rem-ber making a speech there
once". I think it is unlikely that there is any Hall left in Australia in which I
haven't had to speak. When I walked in here this morning I reminded myself, and you
confirmed it, that I had made a speech here. I shall never forget this Hall it has
oneof the highest platforms in Australia. ( Laughter) It has a great moral for a
politician to speak froa a very high platform because he is constantly reminded how
fast and how far he can fall! ( Laughter) This is very health-giving to people in
public life. But the last time I was here I was here in my complete political capacity.
There was a by-election. I am enjoying today's visit compared to my recollectiom of
that one. I have never been so hot in my life except in New Guinea. They tured
on the heat from the heavens and the heat from the platforms and the heat from the
audiences. I want to tell you I hope you won't take offence at it I was jolly
glad to see the last of the place. Today is a very much more civilised occasion.
I was very interested just now, talking to you, Sir, the Mayor, to find oat
the system of local government because it varies from State to State. I myself have
occasionally achieved credit with people like yourself by boasting of the fact that
my father was once the President of a Shire and that y erliest knowledge of
politics at a very tender age, right up in the bush, was when the Councillor from the
North Riding cam, clop, clop, clop, down the road, 24 Jiles from where he lived he
came down in a buggy to pick my father up. Then they west clop, clop, clop down
the road and a fairly rough one for another 25 miles, to where the Shire had its
seat, and where it carried on its business. For a leg time I thought that
politicians were Jhire Councillors. ( Laughter) Now of course I have discovered that
it is the other way around: shire councillors are politicians.
But it is a wonderful thing, a good thing, for anybody who presides over
the central government of a nation, and who has great international problems to
consider, to cow into shire or municipal administration, by whatever name it my go,
and see where the grass roots of Government are to be found. Grass still remins the
most important crop in the world, so the grass roots of Governmnt are, I think, very
frequently, the most important aspect of it bec a use you then produce people who have,
beginning with a local sense, and local responsibilities, a feeling for publie
service. It is the feeling for public service that distinguishes a democracy from
all other forms of government.
Now I want to tell you, before we move on to the next port of call, how
delighted I am to be here, and how delighted I am at what you have been good enough
to say Sir. This place is, I discovered, as I came in from the airport, the sam
distance, almost to a mile, from Sydney by rail, as Mildura is from Melbourne. And
to a Melbourne man Mildura seem the last word in remoteness. To say of sombody
that he has gone to live in Mildura is practically to say he has been botted out of
the book of life. I suppose you occasionally feel like that here.
I have now lived a fair number of years unfair my opponents think yet
the longer I live the more I marvel at the tremendous developments that I have seen
in my own lifetime. We, inour generation, I in mine certainly, have seen some of the
most fabulous changes in the life of mankind. Not only great wars and terrible
tragedies, but I can remember the first motor vehicle coming intothe valley, the very
first. It had been bought by the local doctor and it confirmed the belief that most
people had that ' he must be very ricH. It was a motor buggy; not a very comfortable
affair, but very superior to the old horse. Fancy a fellow of my age being able to
remember the first motor vehicle coming into a substantial part of the state of
Victoria. Similarly I can remember the first moving pictures. They jumped up and
down on the screen but they were marvellous. The first film I ever saw was the
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2.
Great Imerican Train Robbery. And there is no doubt about it, the robbers were
magnificent. But the film was jevky. ( Laughter)
All these things have happened; radio wireless. We have got all the
instrumnts of civilisation put right into our hands except one, the greatest
instrument of civilisation, which is our own spirit. You will test the
civilisation of any comanity by finding out how ma men and women there are in it
who are prepared to do somthing, unselfishly, for other people. That is why I end,
as I began, by saying I like to be brought back into contact with what we call
municipal life, local governent, for it is in local government that you find so=
of the most disinterested service to the comnity that you canfind anywhere inthe
world. Thank you very meh, Sir. I am very delighted that you have given me
this welcom.