CHAMBER OF M4ANU3FACTUR~ ES OF NEhJ SOUTH WALLS
ANNUAL DINNER HELD AT THE AUSTRALIA HOTEL
SYDNEY, ON 12T1H SEPTEMBER, 1963.
Speech by the Prm iitr h t ~ oL ~ rRbr eze
Sir, Your Excellency and Gentlemen:
I am in a very difficult position tonight, In the
first place, I am not accustomed to making speeches ( Laughter).
In the second place, I am in the presence of a bunch of fellows
who have almost counted me out on one or two occasions in the
past ( Laughter) which I must say I enjoyed. In the third
place, I Learned at the last moment that the man who has the
great advantage of being the second last speaker who is proposing
the toast of " The Guests" is unhappily not here -John Walker
and his place is being taken by my favourite pupil, John Hurley.
( Laughter) And perhaps, therefore, I ought to begin with John
Hurley, because, last week I think it was, I was in Papua and
Now Guinea and when wve got up into the Highlands of New Guinea,
we saw a great number of people whose garments wore slightly
sketchy. ( Laughter) They looked rather like B~ ondi or Manly,
and as I was taken around, I said to my friends who, I hope,
understood me, I said " You know, John Hurley would do no
business in ths country," ( Laughter) Then as I thought what
might be done if we do our' duty by Papua and New Guinea, I
thought that I would like to be out of office by that time and
take a few shares in Johnts business. ( Laughter) ' dell, I just
leave that to you, you understand these things so much better
than I do. That after all is a minor trouble. I knew that
I was coming down here this week and I knew that my old and
bitter enemy, Bob lieffron, would be here ( Laughter), flushed
with success from an overseas journey ( Laughter) and I opeiqed
my paper you know, you chaps who just go on making profits,
you don't understand this but there is nothing a politician
likes more than to enjoy the misories of other people ( Laughter)
and every now and thcn you encounter a state of affairs in
which the other fellow is able to do something that you canft
do. Now, here am I there's no news, there's no novelty about
this remark I have a majority of one ( Laughter), a state of
affairs to which all of you, in your various ways, contributed.
( Laughter) And I opened my paper -I hesitate to say which
one because they arc all here ( Laoughter)-and I read that my
old and friendly enemy, Bob Heffron has stood up on the floor
of the House and has said to a supporter, a somewhat doubtful
supporter perhaps I don't know ( Laughter) I mean, we all
have those ( Laughter) and with a sweeping gesture has also
said to the Leader of the Opposition, " You can hava him"
( Laughter) I didn't feel too good about this, ( Laughter)
I didn't think I had quite come to the point of living on the
crumbs that fall from the rich man's table ( Laughter), He has
got a majority of X plus Y plus Z; I have a majority of one.
( Laughter) If you wake up some morning and you open your
favourite journal and you see " Menzies said to So-a-nd-so
' Leave and Join the Opposition" then you will know that I
am going to have an election ( Laughter) ( Applause)
Therefore, Mr. Premier, I really felt that in spite
of the happy personal relations that you and I have had that
this was rubbing it in a bit. ( Laughter) Don't you think so?
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All of those of that opinion say " Aye" ( Voices " Aye") To
the contrary " No" the "~ Ayes" I have it.
Well, of course, this is politics, when you have an
enormous majority as before you got to work, I had ( Laughter)
you assume a rather gloomy attitude. Well, you know, you fear
the worst when you have a majority Of 32, but when you have a
majority of one, you assume a eupeptic appearance. One a
marvellous majorityl Marvellous4 And everybody says, " lIsn~ t
it wonderful to have a majority of one?" Now, I refer this
question, not necessarily to a Royal Commission ( Laughter) but
for some domestic investigat io ntohePmirfNeSuh
Wales the simple question, Doc or, being What does it feel
like to have a majority of one? And when we ore both kicked out,
old boy, if I am still alive, I will write you a little essay
on that matter. Anyhow, that's enough of that kind. of nonsense.
My job tonight is to propose the Toast of Australian
Industry. I must say, gentlemen, that I admire tne skill with
which you use these general tezt. s _ Austral-ian Industry becaluse
if you printit with a capital then, Of course it includes
primary industry, secondary industry, tertiary inaustry, public
industry, private industry, and my task is to propose the toast
of the lot which means, in reality, that I am up here to propose
the toast of Australia and triis, I think, is a very honourable
task, But having mentioned all the capital I might
perhaps be allowed to add a small I also propose the toast
of " personal industry" in Austr3lia because in reality, whon
we have got over all the political arguments, the truth remains7
doesn't it that the future of this country your country, my
country the present and the future both do. pend on hew far the
primary industry, secondary industry, tertiary industry, public
industry private industry and personal industry conspire together
for the luture of the country. This is quite right, because
unless all of thnese things march together then the development
and gr~ owth of Australia will not be what It should be.
Now, of course7 people like to hoar you say what
ought to be done, but a grea~ t deal has been done. I know that in
any country like our own a marvellous country there are
builders and there are " knockers". I make no expression of
disrespect to my old friend whom I have never met, Mr. Whelan the
Wrecker ( Laughter) " Whelan the Wrecker was because
I know a certain amount of wrecking is necessary before a building
goes up. But really, I think we all ought to take a little timie
off occasionally to ask ourselves whether we are " knockers" which
is easy, rather clever, quite simple. I have always been afraid
that when I finally go~ out of my present discontents and can
sit in an armchair in the corner of a club and say, " I dont
understand what these fools are about" well7 I hope I shall
understand how simple it will be to achieve a reputition as a
critic, But what goes on in Australia and what has gone on in
Australia is not to the credit of the " knockers" but to the
credit of the builders to the credit of the co-operators, to
the credit -of the people who have looked forward and who have
done their stuff and have seen a vision of what can occur in
Australia. Somebody on my staff, some faithful chap because
we all have a few faithful chaps reminded me only yesterday
that not long ago I went up to the North-4est of Western
Australia to the Ord River to the opening of the Kununurra Darn,
and this is a fascinating affair. It is still, in a sense,
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experimental. It is experimental on a large scale. Here is a
part of Australia i~ n which a great river which from time to time
becomes rather exuberant can be dammed and can be distributed over
the countryside, over land which normally wouldn't grow very much.
And there you are you can see acres and hundreds of acres and
thousands of acres of land under cotton, under all sorts of
various crops sa-fflowor and so on, and you begin to realise
what hap~ ens in a dramatic way in Australia when water is applied
to an otherwise unpromising soil,
This, I found rather oxciting, and if you will allow
me the rare privilege that I have of quoting myself in my own
favour, T will quote what I said on that occasion, and that was,
and I commend this to everybody that the whole h-istory of
Australia is the history of the impossible becoming the possible,
of the possible becoming the probable and of the probable becoming
a living certainty ( Hear, hear) ( Applause). Whenever I read,
some months afterwards, something that I said, I am not like the
fellow who said " What a genius I had when I wrote those lines."
I usually sa1y, ? Take it away and burn it". But on this occasion,
I repeat it, and this might very well be our text, because her'e
I am proposing the Toast of Industry Industry with particular
reference, of course, to manufacturing industry which has had so
much to do with Australian development and will have more and more
to do in the future. But Industry.
Why do we take so much time off to argue with each
other about matters which are of no great importance when in
reality, what you and I have the groot privilege of engaging in
is the task of building a young country, in terms of population a
small country, in such a fashion, so generously, so ambitiously,
that in a hundred years' time, the people who then live in
Australia and who have a population of 60 to 70 million people
a great nation. a great people, a groat race will look back on
us and say " Well, at any rate, they had imagination. They laid
the foundations. They got together." Whenever I read the
history of another country the United States if you like, and
I have read a great deal of the history of the United States in
my time I am not so much interested in the things they disagreed
about except to identify them as I am about how far their
ideas coalesced to produce an immense result,
You knew, gentlemen the other day by some error on
somebodyts part, I was invited to deliver the Jefferson Lecture
at Monticello in the United States at Charlottosvillel Virginia,
and on behalf of my country, I took this as a compliment because
it is the first time anybody outside the United States has ever
been invited to do it. And so I brushed up my recollection of
he legal history of the early part of the United States and its
general history and it suddenly dawned on me that there was one
singular fact Thomas Jefferson, a very great man by any
measurement, great enough to incur hostility in any quarter today
( Laughter) Thomas Jefferson had been the American Minister
( they didn't have an Embassy in those days) in France. He came
back. He was the Draftsman of the American Declaration of
Independence. He was the First Secretary of State in Washington~ s
administration and, by any measurement George Washington was one
of the great men of modern history, full of courage, fortitude,
understanding and Thomas Jefferson was his Secretary of State.
And then later on he was Vice President of America and then for
two terms, he was President of the United States, When he first
became~ President of the United States, he presided ever a United
States of r5-million people. Please remaerbe r that. Five and a
half million people. 909 69/
I, for some reason or another that you may analyse
in my absence, have been Prime Minister of Australia for some
years and today, we have 11 million pc ople. Eleven million
people. We sometimes feel, don't we, that eleven million poople
is a very small number of people. We are a small country.
Compar'e us with the vast masses of people. We are no great shakes
after all. If Jefferson had said that if Jefferson had written
off the United States because it had afmillion people, the whole
history of the world would have been a1tered. Make no mistake
about it. We, in Australia, with 11 million people, with all the
advantages that we have in life, with all the prospects that we
have in the future, have a tremendous opportunity, provided wie
pre prepared as individuals to apply industry to work, to sweat,
not to ask too much for too little 2 but to feel that we , sre building
a nation which will someday be as important in the world as the
United States of America is today. Look, if we could only understand
this, this is something tremendous.
I know thore are a lot of poople who say, " Well, we
live we die we are buried and so what." You know, if we really
all thought that, if we really all thought that, it would be a
pretty dyspeptic sort of life, wouldn't it? Here today and gone
tomorrow. I am not engaging in arguments about theological
matters, whether people believe in a future life or not is their
own business, I do, But it is their own business. But the
greatest disbeliever in a future life in some astral sphere must
still believe that what we are doing today in Australia must have
some effect on what happens in Australia in fifty years' time;
in other words that we have our contribution to make whether we
know about it Irom some other place or we don't, whether we are
recognised for it or we are not. These things dontt matter all
that much, The truth of the matter is that we are doing something,
we are building something for the future. A'nd our great-grandchildren
may net think about us at all except when they go and
see some plaque in my case and say, " Well old great-greatgrandfather,
hr. adafonain tn. Well that doesn.' t
matter very much,, Foundation stones don't matter very much.
I'd like them to feel that you and I, in our generation, had laid
more than foundation stones, that we h( ad done something to build
industrially, in all its aspects, a great country. Then we willj
from wherever we arc you in Heaven., I in Hell ( Laughter) -' we
will, in somne mysterious fashion, perhaps? become conscious of
it. But this requires not only great faith and great energy and
very little narrowness of mzind, very little dwelling on the
particular interest at the moment; this requires a broad mnind
and a constructive sense,
Sir, I was up the other day in Papua and New Guinea
and here is a country which presents us with a challenge. We
have been tremendously assisted in our consideration of our
problems in that country by a group of meon led by Jimr Kirby
( Sir James Kirby) who went up there not long ago and had a look
at it; and only the ether day by a professional group from the
World Bank who went there and will in due course present us with
a report on it.
We can't look at ourselves as if we were in a watertight
compartment. A1re we to look at Australia and say " Well
our groat ambition is to be purely self-contained noboly else
need apply; nobody else need compete" 9 Are we io say that to
Papua and Now Guinea? Are we to say to this country for which
we have accepted the greatest international responsibilities in
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our history a task which is overlooked by people, many of whom
would love to see us fail are we to say, " Well, what happens to
Papua-New Guinea doesn't matter very much. They can grow rubber
they can grow tea" and I think they'll grow more and mora of i
" they can grow coffee, they can grow cocoanuts, copra, they can
grow cattle." Well, all these things are at their very beginning,
but you can never think of the problem of Papua-New Guinea as if
this country were isolated from us, as if we could treat it for all
purposes as if it were a foreign country because it is not a
foreign country, Papua-New Guinea is the greatest responsibility
that this country of ours has ever taken on in the eye of international
judgment. And therefore I was delighted when distinguished
members of your own from Sir James Kirby down went and had a look
at this business, went and made valuable reports on it. Never
lot us get too bedded down on the immediate problems that we have,
although they are important. Of course they are important.
But let us all of us you, I, all the rest of us feel that
the judgment that will be applied to us is not the judgment of
the shareholders at your next general meeting, or the judgment
of the electors at my next general election, but will be the
judgment of people, in the long run, who say, '" Jhat did these
ancestors of ours, what did these predecessors do as builders
not only in Australia but elsewhere,"
Now, the only other thing I want to say to you is this,
Sir. I have spoken too long, but this exercises ny mind or
what passes for my mind. There has been a great deal of hurroosh
I don't know how to spell that word but it sounds all right
( Laughter) about the problem of restrictive practices, of trade
practices. ( Laughter) That's right, this rings a bell. ( Laughter)
And of course all this problem evokes two classes of people who
dont matter. One the people who say, " I'm against it, whatever
it is." Well, that's silly. There are others who say, " I don't
understand what it is but I am in favour of it" and that doesn't
matter. What I have been interested to discover in the last
year, is that very, very few people come along an say, " I'm
against anything." The people who count on this matter are the
people who say, " Well, yes, there are some things that are done
that ought not to be done but a real important problem is to
discover what they are, how sensibly a scheme may be developed
on those matters," and I like those people for the very simple
reason that I think they are very sensible and I would like to
toll you that in the middle of all the hurroosh, we had last week
a discussion no, it was this week, last Monday with representatives
of the Manufacturing Industries Advisory Council, their
spokesman being Mr. Irish, and we had put to us the most balanced,
sensible and impressive body of ideas on this matter that I have
yet heard and I would like to say that on behalf of the Government
we are very grateful for this.
We are not dogmatic on this matter, we are not
doctrinaire on this matter. Indeed, we are like you. We want
to preserve competition and, so far as we can, with good sense,
eliminate unfairness and injustice. Well, it is easy enough to
say that in the broad. When you come down to the point as to
how you are to do it, you get to a problem which will, in due
course, exercise the Governments of the States who have exactly
the same interest as we have on this matter and whose co-operation
is essential in this field, and all I want to tell you is that
what has been said to me and to ry colleagues in the last few
days has been so constructive and so helpful that I think it may
well determine the future course of action. ( Applause) / 6
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Sir, when I was coming here tonight my wife said
to me because she has gone to see somebody else " How
late do you think you will be?" And, I said, " Oh, I don't
know. About half past ten" and the driver, who knows me
of old, said relevantly, though perhaps impertinently, he
said, ' Well Sir, ( one of the great advantages of
life is that the driver calls you " Sir" ( Laughter) he said,
" Sir, the year before last it was a quarter to twelve and
last year it was a quarter past twelve," So I said to my
wife, " All right, my dear. When you have seen as much as
you want to see of Earthy or whatever her name is
( Laughter) you go home. And, therefore, in the meantime Sir,
thanking you for your usual and marvellous hospitality. I
will invite all my temporary collaborators ( Laughter) to
stand up and drink with me the Toast of Australian Industry.
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