PUBLIC MEETING AT FESTIVAL HALL BRISBANE
ON RDAPRIL, 196.
Speech by the Prime Minister, the Rt, Hon, Sir Robert Menzies
Mr. Hulme and Ladies and Gentlemen
The acoustics in this hall are not half as good
as the audience because I have been sitting behind my friend,
the Chairman, and I didn't hear a word that he said but I did
hear a few glancing references to " Pig-iron" so that I knew
my old friends, the Commos, were hereo ( Applause)
Now, I just want to offer one piece of advice to
all of you in the audience if you want to register into my
ear, you must not all talk at once, Do you mind? Just take
it in turn and then I might hear you2 and, of course, I would
love to hear you. I would enjoy tha a Already I have heard
enough to be able to congratulate my friend Mr, Nicklin, on
his assured victory at the next election, ( Applause) because
when our opponents scream, they're in trouble, Now, don't
destroy your voice. Don't become too hoarse too quickly or
for that matter, too donkey too quickly. You please yourself.
Now, I'll explain to you, my dear fellow, that there is an
echo in this hall which makes it impossible for me to understand
what you are saying. Therefore, you are wasting your time.
But I want to say something tonight about matters which concern
my Government, the Commonwealth, and the nation of Australia.
Somebody over hjro says " You are not a Government." ihen he has
been Prime Minister by the election of the people as long as
I have, I invite him to get up and tell us, ( Applause)
Now, first of all, ladies and gentlemen, I just
want to say something to you, in spite of all this, about what
has happened in Australia in my own time, what has happened in
Australia since you've had the Commonwealth Government you now
have the Commonwealth Government, I beg you to remember, which
has been voted for by the people of Australia six times. Six
times, ( Applause) Sir, the Labour Party. I can speak freely about
the Labour Party, can't I, because you're not a Labour man ( to
interjector); I can tell that, The Labour Party is very fond
nowadays of getting up and saying, sometimes with one voice, and
sometimes with 36, that Australia has really gone to the dogs
we are in a state of acute misery in Australia and, of course,
particularly in Queenslando They are willing to say that because
they have hopes in Queensland; rather sketchy hopes but still
hopes. I wonder if I might remind the Labour Party that it
really contributed mighty little to the development of this
State, in fact discouraged investment in this State. I'd
like to remind them and if you can listen as well as roar,
you might consider those figures.
The tobacco industry is a great Queensland industry
and a growing one and, no doubt in spite of your poverty, my
dear boy ( to interjector), you are a great customer of the
tobacco industry, ( Applause) When the Labour Government was in
office the Commonwealth Labour Government they managed to
screw themselves to the point of requiring that 2-per cent of
cigarette tobacco should be Australian-grown. Today, under my
Government, and in current terms with the great assistance of
my colleague down here the Minister for Primary Industry the
percentage is not it is 40 per cent. ( Applause) And in
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the result, up at Mareeba and Dimboola, œ 3M worth of tobacco
is being grown. Tobacco which was an unwanted rather doubted
industry in Australia has become a major industry,
What else has happened? Up in the north of
Queensland, we have been seeing a new era of development
which is of supreme importance to Australia the great
bauxite deposits, the great uranium discoveries. I don't
remember that the Labour Party had anything to do with these
matters, The great sugar industry ( Interjector " What
about the worker?' Yes, he says, " What about the worker?"
that is an almost Edwardian expression: " What about the worker?"
( Applause) It's absolutely wonderful " What about the worker?"
Well, I'll tell him. I suppose that what he calls the worker,
the employed man or woman, in this State has some interest in
the fact that whereas when we came into office, the great sugar
industry in Queensland exported half a million tons of sugar
I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about quantity and
what is it today? A million and a quarter tons or more ( Applause).
Well, now, my colleague sends me a signal to say I am underestimating
it. All I know is that it has practically quadrupled
over the term of office of the present Government.
I wonder if I might make a delicate reference to
the great subject of pig-iron. Pig-iron and ingot steel these
are two of the great pointers in industrial production in
Australia and since we have been in office the production of
these two commodities has trebled today. 1 11 explain to some
of you boys what I mean by trebled three times as much today
( Applause) as there were when your boys were in officeo
Sir, I don't need to go through all these things.
Wevve had the most tremendous development in this country, New
industries every year. I was reminded this morning if I may
refer to the subject of coal, that when the Labour Party was in
up to 1949 for eight years ( to interjector " That's right
Happy DaysS) we were importing coalo We were so happy thaz
we had blackouts and power shortages and we, Australia, were
importing coal from India and from South Africa and paying
through the nose for it, Today, under a non-Labour Government,
Australia is exporting coal as well as using far moro coal
internally than she ever did before0 ( Applause) And some of
your friends, my boy, ought to be pleased about it, because up
at Gladstone, there are a few good, sound unionists who have
jobs in the handling of coal for export, who wouldn't have had
them at all but for what has happened over the last ten years.
Now, Sir, in this rather gay and friendly atmosphre,
I am not going to occupy your time by quoting a lot of statistics
and therefore, well, I know I wouldn't waste statistics on
you ( Laughter, Applause) but I want to turn to another matter
which I am sure will infuriate some of the exports around the
room, We have had in Canberra, ( I suppose you can mostly
hear me, can you?) in che last three weeks two motions of " No
Confidence" by this powerful Opposition that we have at Canberra,
They came along and breathed deep the night air at the Kurrajong
Hotel or wherever it was what was it, the other one, the
Wellington Hotel or something; they came along reinforced by
a vote of 19 to 17, which would have been 18 all and therefore
negative, but for a statesmanlike act by the Queenslander well,
now, I would have thought you would have applauded that.
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They came along and they had two goes at us. I have never
enjoyed two debates more, I have never felt so convinced that
a Labour Party is on the way out ( Applause) ( Boos) Now, ladies
and gentlemen, if you dontt mind me engaging in a little bit
of autobiography, I have been a Leader of the Opposition myself
and I know what it means and I know that an Opposition Leader
must occasionally move a vote of " No Confidence", It keeps the
boys together. It takes their minds off their troubles, and
we have had two, and the first of them seemed to have something
to do with international affairs and, as a matter of fact we
didn't assume an attitude of defence, we went on to the attack
and if ever an Opposition moving a " No Confidence" motion was
thrashed to its feet appropriate expression in this hall it
was the Labour Party on that censure motionø Their trouble was
that they know that Australia, whatever else it may think about
this or that, is quite determined to be free and secure in future.
Therefore, we decided that we would find out where the Labour
Party stood on these matters, and what did we get? What did we
get? We got, first of all, this extraordinary attitude that
they have about the signalling station in the North West of
West Australia. ( Interjector " What will it I' 11 tell
you what it will do, and believe me, Sir, if you understand what
I say to you now, don't waggle your finger at me if you
understand what I am saying to you, you will be better informed
than any of your cobbers in the Opposition because they have
never succeeded in understanding ito The Americans, the United
States of America, they are our allieso Do we all realise that?
( Applause) They are our allies, We and New Zealand ( to interjector
Well don't you like them to be allies?) Really what
have we come to? We and New Zealand are their allies in tho
ANZUS pact, just as we are also associated with them in the
South East Asia Treaty Organization, I wonder if anybody would
like to report that on a reference to the United States being
our ally, a few cheapjacks in this audience counted them out.
Is that the Queensland view? Is that the view that you want to
That's right ( voices counting out). That's exactly what
I expected. Yes, take a good picture, boys. They'll get all
the publicity, This is the usual thing. Wonderful. They ought
to get the Stalin Medal with a bit of luck. ( Cheers and Applause)
You know the interesting thing about those lads? They stand up
straight, but they can't think straight, ( Cheers, Applause).
Now ladies and gentlemen, what is the purpose of this
signalling station? I would like to tell you. The purpose of
it is to enable communications to occur between the United States
and United States naval forces in the Indian Ocean and the South
West Pacific. They have these facilities.... ( More counting
out by interjectors) By Jove, this is the first time that I ever
heard that the Pope was a Communist. ( Applause) Really, you
boys would make anybody laugh, Well trained, no doubt well paid,
Get a picture of them. That's the object of the exercise. All
over the press tomorrow, " The Pope calls for peace." All I am
saying is that if we want peace for ourselves in Australia, if
we want security for ourselves in Australia, it's time we woke
up to the fact that in this part of the world, the friendship,
the generosity the power of the United States is essential to
us. ( Applause PUhy does the Labour Party object to this
signalling station? Well, I confess I am wrong because by a
majority of 19 to 17, they decided they were in favour of the
signalling station, provided that if a war occurred, and the
signalling station was therefore needed, it couldn't be used
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except by the permission of the government of the day in other
words: " Yes America, spend œ 50M or œ 60M or œ 70M, put up this
signalling station and when the day comes that you need it, we
give you notice that if there's a Labour Government in Australia,
you won't be allowed to use it at all." ( Boos) If anything
has been made crystal clear, it's that.
Now, I wonder why the Labour Party has this extraordinary
view. Is it anti-American? ( To interjector Well,
I am very glad to have your answer, Sir, that it is not anti-
American) Does it believe that in the event of a great
conflagration in the world, Australia can defend herself without
friends or without allies? Does the Labour Party believe that
because nobody else does. The simple fact is that if we expect
the United States to do things for us, we must be prepared to
do things for the United States, ( Applause) ( Interjector
" What about Great Britain?" Not so powerful as she once was but
with tremendous significance in the old world. We expect Great
Britain to do things for us, We are prepared to do things for
her, The whole curse that has come upon the Labour Party
is that it has become isolationist in the last few years. It
wants to pretend that if it puts its head in a bag and looks
in the other direction inside the bag nothing will happen and
we will be left alone. And if we wanz any further proof of that,
we have only to look at the fantastic proposal of the Labour
Party that the whole Southern Hemisphere should be a nuclearfree
zone. ( Yells and cheers from interjoctors) Of course this
is what they are cheering. The whole Southern Hemisphere is to
become a nuclear-free zoneo What about the Northern Hemisphere?
They haven't said anything about that. Let's stick to the
point. The Labour Party has agreed that the whole Southern
Hemisphere is not to have, store, manufacture or receive or use
any nuclear weapons and that goes for the whole area of the
world south of the Equator, It goes for South Sumatra, but it
doesn't go for North Sumatra. It goes for Indonesia and for
New Guinea and Australia but it doesn't go for Thailand; it
doesn't go for Burma, it doesn't go for North Viet Nam, it
doesn't go for Communist China. And therefore, we have this
extraordinary proposition being put up: We, in the Southern
Hemisphere will say nobody can bring a nuclear weapon to our
defence south of the Equator, but north of the Equator, the
only aggressors in the world, the Communist powers, can make
use of them to their hearts' content, and if the time comes
( more jeering and yelling). These boys, of course, are great
exponents of free speech. We notice that. They are delighted
to have somebody express his mind and to give them provocation.
I would express my mind about them with even more delight. But,
anyhow, I am going back to my topic.
My topic is that this policy is one in which you
confine nuclear weapons to north of the Equator and you leave
the countries south of the Equator defenceless against them.
Absolutely defenceless against them. ( Interjector " Rubbish")
You say " Ribbish", but let me put this to you. Lot me put this
to you. The United States, I hope you will concede is our
ally, and the United States is significant to us and the United
States has naval forces in the Indian Ocean, including, of
course, naval vessels, either carriers or submarines or aircraft,
which carry nuclear weapons and it may well be in the event of
a great war that the capacity of the Western powers to attack
the Communist stronghold by nuclear weapons will depend upon
their control of the Indian Ocean, their capacity to use the
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Indian Ocean for those purposes. But according to the Australian
Labour Party, they are not to be allowed to use the Indian Ocean,
except North of the Equator, they are not to be allowed to bring
their vessels into the Indian Ocean if they are armed with
nuclear weapons, unless they bring them through the Straits
of Malacca where they can be closed overnight and counted every
day, in any event, or bring them through the Suez Canal. Now,
I ask you, ladies and gentlemen do you want the United States
to think we are a lot of half-wits? Do you want them to suppose
that we are bogus in our attitude of friendship with them, of
alliance with them, because the best way to do that is to vote
into office a Labour Government with the views that I have been
putting and I venture to say that our alliances in a useful
sense with the United States will come to an end,
Now I am talking about this matter because I don't
want anybody to be under any misapprehension. I am very familiar
with the views of various people around the world. ( Jeering
slow clapping, shouting and yelling) Isn't it wonderful? This
shows that they are on the wane because the moment the Labour
Party becomes overwhelmed by its Communist friends and they all
start preventing people from listening, that's the end of it.
( Cheers and applause) Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I
want to say to you you won't have any doubt of the truth of
this, though they do: The majority of the people of Australia
are decent people, ( Applause) which distinguishes them sharply
from some of these. Decent people. And what's more, they are
not only decent people but they are sensible people and they
know that the future of this country is tremendously involved
in us maintining our contacts, our alliances with the great
free powers of the world. ( Applause)
Sir, I was very interested to discover what the
Labour Party's policy was on these matters and indeed I took
the opportunity of pointing out, in the course of the debate,
how many of the front-bench Labour men and I presume they
were expressing the views of the 36, the 36 faceless men who
run the Labour Party several of them were at great pains to
say, " What's Malaya got to do with us, Wny should we have
forces in Malaya? Why should we worry about what happens in
relation to Malaysia? Why should we worry about anything
except what happens inside Australia?" Now that's the Labour
Party's policy, Di-me, my distinguished opponent is, I believe,
speaking in Brisbane somewhere tonight you know, the Member
for East Sydney. ( Yells and cheers) Well give him a cheer.
You're exactly his type. Give him a cheer. And I am told
he's here. Do you remember when he invented a story about the
Brisbane Line ( shouts and yells) Yes, invented a story about
the Brisbane Line and went before a Royal Commissioner and
pleaded privilege and said, " I can't give evidence; I have
parliamentary privilege." You must, some of you, remember this,
All I can say is, that if this business of the Labour Party, if
their policy to warn off the Americans, to control them at the
North-West Cape to ban any nuclear rovision in the Southern
Hemisphere, if this succeeds, it won't be the Brisbane Line
that they will be up to, it will be the Hobart Line or the South
Pole Line, ( Applause) Now, Sir, that is all I need to say
about that matter, There are a lot of people in this hall
tonight and a lot of people listening in who really understand
that it is the first duty of a Government to attend to the
security of the nation, that the security the safety of the
people is the supreme law, They know that, and therefore they
will be in a good position to judge the worthlessness of these
evasive, isolationist policies on the part of Labour,
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Well, now I just turn to another matter, because
we have had two " No Confidence" motions. I don't know how
many more we'll have.... ( Interjector " You'll get one
now") I welcome them, ny dear boy. I welcome themo But,
my dear fellow, didn't you listen in? Didn't you listen in
to the debate? Didn't you realise that the Labour Party was
thrashed on both, not only in the division, but in the
House? Come, core, you must do yourself justice. But the
second " No Confidence" notion had to do with television and
it was a very interesting one. Very interesting. It is
quite true that the Leader of the Opposition fell into the
error of making some outrageous charges of corruption and
dishonesty against people who were not involved and that I
find it very difficult to forgive. But at any rate, what did
happen was that the Labour Party explained its policy on
television. How? ( Shouts and jeers) Well in your case,
put it under the control of the Comintern. I understand
that. But to nationalise all television.
Now letts understand what this is: Every country
television station run by a local company, aery city television
station run by a company to be closed down; either at the
end of its current licence if they are being respectable,
or closed up with or without compensation, so that when we
turn on the television at night we will be privileged to
look at the one station run by the Government. Now that's
their policy. And, having stated that policy repeatedly, they
then began to support it by the rather villainous argument
that I referred to,
Now, ladies and gentlemeno this is something worth
thinking about, This television is something new in
Australia. It has boon introduced in our own tine, not in
a hurry and it has now been going and spreading and extending
for a few years. Does anybody in Australia wish to have a
Government monopoly of television? ( Interjector " What
about private enterprise?") Jell, exactly, you talk about
private enterprise. He's in favour of private enterprise
now. ( Laughter) He's in a confused state of mind, I think,
my friend down there. He wants private onterprisoe What I
am saying to this great audience is Do you want to have a
Government monopoly on television? ( Interjector " Yes")
Good. He has ambitions to be in the Government. ( Laughter)
A government monopoly in television, a government monopoly
in broadcasting sane sort of thing is that what we want?
A few rather feeble yessos. I imagine if I an any judge of
an audience that 90 per cent. of the people here tonight
don't want to have a government monopoly of television,
( Sustained applause) If they don't they had better take
a little more care how they vote at the next election than
some of them did at the last.
Now, ]. et's face up to it because here is a
Labour Party, publicly and solidly pledged, and repeating
it in the House to nationalise television, to wipe out
commerecial broadcasting over here he says, as if he is
talking to himself " Liars" ( Lnughter) If I thought you
could read, I would advise you to read the Hansard because
we went to great pains to have this established in the House,
and it is established beyond the slightest chance of contradiction.
And the Labour Party? Well, it's in a funny state.
It's a messed-up Party. It really is. I am almost sorry
for it at tines. ( Laughter) ( Applause) It is just muddledup,
the Labour Party, They sit down and they say, " Well,
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we ought to do this." For example, I think this is rather
amusing. There was a television licence to be issued in
Melbourne and one of the applicants had two directors representing
the Labour Party ( Interjection inaudible.) Oh, no. The
two directors representing the Labour Party. And they had one
or two extraordinarily well-to-do capitalistic types sitting
on the Board and they made their application, but it turned out,
when the House was meeting to discuss this matter, they didn't
believe in private enterprise even with Labour directors, they
must have their monopoly. And, finally, the Broadcasting Control
Board recommended, in the case of Victoria, the application by
Mr, Ansett's group. Oh, this was very, very unhappy. After
all, the Board recommended it and the 3oard recommended it
unanimously, and after all, one of the directors of the Ansett
group is a well-known Labour candidate in Victoria Sir George
Jones not likely to be a supporter of mine or of ours. But
the Board recommended the Ansett group and we said, " Very well.
We accept the recommendation."
SNow that, I would have thought, would have ended it,
because Parliament established this Board, Parliament passed
the law. Under the law passed by Parliament, there is a Broadcasting
Control Board; the Board is an independent body and
every application for a licence has to be referred to it and
people come along eight or nine of them in each case, and
spend thousands ol pounds on presenting their case to the
Board and the Board makes a report, and we accepted the Board's
report, I wonder what the Labour Party would have done.
( Interjector " Don't worry about the Labour Party") I'm not
worried about the Labour Party. I am only talking about the
Labour Party because I think there might be a few noodles left
who want to vote for them, ( Cheers, applause) Suppose Labour
had been in office, what would they have done about it? Would
they have rejected the report of the Board? Would they have
selected a few of their own friends? ( Sustained slow clapping)
There you are, you have got the answer. They would have given
a slow clap. That's it and while everybody was saying what
dumbbells these are, the Labour Party, no doubt, would have
either given the licence to one of its friends, or would have
said, " The whole thing is cancelled; we are going to have
a complete Government monopoly of television" because that is
its policy. Now ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken to you
about those matters because I think they are modern, they are
quite contemporary. We have thrashed them out in the House, and
I don't propose at this stage to occupy your time any longer,
but I do take the opportunity of saying that there has been
no great Party in the history of Australia ever to have won an
election by larrikin tactics. No great Party. ( Applause)
All I can do is to express my deep sympathy to my Labour
opponents for some of the curious characters who allegedly
support them on the fringe.