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Prime Ministers on Prime Ministers

Old Parliament House

Canberra, 5 March 1998

The Prime Ministers on Prime Ministers Lecture Series formed a central part of the 70th Anniversary celebrations of Old Parliament House, Canberra during 1997-1998. Five of Australias six living Prime Ministers delivered lectures which offered their personal reflections on the profile and public significance of the role of Prime Minister.

The lecturers were:

Old Parliament House has been conserved and restored as a place for all Australians to celebrate our countrys unique social and political history, and was reopened to the public in 1992. Link to Old Parliament House Canberra, Australia (opens in new window)

If a week is a long time, fifteen years is an eternity in politics. And in many ways it seems like that, as though we are in a new and largely uncharted world. Since this day in 1983, memorable for me and, I hope, in a number of ways important for Australia, so many of the features that fixed our course and determined our thinking, both internationally and domestically, have either disappeared or changed almost beyond recognition.

The Soviet Union and with it the Cold War, have passed into history to be replaced by a mosaic of changing and less stable alliances. The environment has moved from the periphery of politics to centre stage. The sterile and morally stultifying doctrine of terra nullius has been replaced, thankfully, by the legal recognition of the prior rights of our Aboriginal people. The accelerating revolution in the technology of computers and telecommunications renders derisory the inclinations of those who seek to tighten their borders against the penetration of foreign goods and services, and ideas. We may not like some of the implications of globalisation but it is an inevitable fact of life with benefits we should recognise and challenges for government that must be addressed. These have been well expressed by a knowledgeable source, George Soros, who wrote last year: "The development of a global society has lagged behind the growth of a global economy." Pointing to the inequities of globalisation Soros observed:

The capacity of the state to look after the welfare of its citizens has been severely impaired by the globalisation of the capitalist system, which allows capital to escape taxation much more easily than labour can.

I have spoken of changes but as I look back to this day fifteen years ago, I think equally of those considerations for government which I believed then should be seen as constants - and which in my judgment remain unchanged today.

Let me first be quite clear in saying that there is no room for the counsels of perfection. In a brilliant essay on politics - the best I have read - introducing his two volume work The Endless Adventure, a history of Robert Walpole the first British Prime Minister, F.S. Oliver observed, in 1931:

No politician has ever yet been able to rule his country, nor has any country ever yet been able to face the world, upon the principles of the Sermon on the Mount.

But while intelligent pragmatism is an inevitable and proper part of the political process I do believe there is one constant and over-riding moral imperative - the right of every citizen to have the opportunity to develop and utilise his or her talents in gainful employment and, if this is not possible, to be sustained by those who are so employed. This imperative implies other constants. First, racial prejudice can have no place in the conduct of our domestic affairs or international relationships. I cannot put this position more directly than in the letter condemning Pauline Hanson that I prepared and signed together with my ex-Prime Ministerial colleagues Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating;

In the eyes of the Gods of the worlds great religions there is no prejudice of colour or race nor should there be in the eyes of men or women. No person on this earth is intrinsically of greater or lesser merit because of their colour or race.

Second, the relationship between citizens and government is not simply one of rights but of mutual obligations. The government has an obligation to inform citizens and their relevant organisations of the facts that must be taken into account in policy formulation, and they in turn have an obligation to participate constructively in dialogue with government. Government has a majority of power but not a monopoly of wisdom. It is always sensible to draw upon the range of knowledge, experience and attitudes within the community. Good policy and a civil society is more likely to emerge from a mutually informed relationship between government and the people.

The third implicit constant is a logical extension of the second - the pursuit of consensus rather than confrontation should be the objective of government. For the macho men of politics - and not forgetting on the female side my old friend and sparring partner Margaret Thatcher - consensus is almost a dirty word which they equate with an abdication of leadership. This, I believe, is nonsense. At every level of human relationships - personal, economic, cultural or sporting - a unity of understanding and purpose is rightly regarded as a desirable element in achieving success. The principle is no less true at the highest level of the nations affairs.

Consensus does not just happen. It requires leadership and that leadership must also recognise that consensus is not always possible or can only be achieved at a price that is inconsistent with the national interest. The pilots' strike in 1989 for a 30% salary increase was a classic example of this truth. I pleaded with the pilots to see reason. I explained to them that times had changed, that the old tactics of pressuring one airline to cave in and getting the others to follow was simply not on in the new world of wage restraint in which significant increases had to be matched by corresponding increases in productivity. No doubt I could have achieved some rough consensus between the pilots, the airlines and the ACTU, to accommodate a significant increase for them. But this would have been at a price of unleashing a series of sizeable wage claims across the board from a trade union movement that had exercised very considerable restraint under the Accord. This would have been consensus at an unacceptable cost.

In opening this series John Howard said that "each of the 25 Prime Ministers has brought his own value system to the job" and in what I have said so far I have attempted to encapsulate my own. The challenge of Prime Ministership is to apply that value system - the constants - to the complex realities of change which constitute one's ongoing agenda.

In the remainder of this address I would like to share with you some thoughts about how that tension between values and change worked out in practice during my years as Prime Minister. Finally, in terms of those values I would like to discuss what I see as some of the more important challenges confronting Australia today.

Before talking, briefly, about that exciting time in Government let me make a longer-term point. As I assumed the Prime Ministership I was conscious of the historical record which showed the conservatives as the "natural" party of government with Labor occasionally called on in times of crisis and then relegated to the Opposition benches. I was tired of that. I wanted to see Labor transform itself, not by the abandonment of fundamental principles, but by making those principles relevant to a rapidly changing world and the developing aspirations of our people.

With some trauma and considerable discipline within the Party, I believe the record now shows that we did this. Other parties of similar persuasion around the world have come to look at us and absorb the best of what we have done. This is not simply something that is reassuring for Labor but it is surely good for the country that it is faced with two groupings who are legitimate claimants to government.

Labor went into the 1983 election on the promise of reconciliation, recovery and reconstruction - the words I had jotted down at a meeting of the Federal Executive in 1982 before becoming leader of the Party. I committed us to hold a National Economic Summit within a month of forming government. Held here in the House of Representatives Chamber on 11 April 1983, this gathering of 98 delegates and 19 observers from business, the trade unions, the States, municipal government, welfare, community and religious organisations was unique in Australia's history. Initially the bureaucrats were horrified at my proposal to stage it in the Parliament itself - "it has never been done, Prime Minister" - but it seemed to me an entirely appropriate place to bring this government and the people together.

The scepticism of the officials, and indeed many of my colleagues, did not prevent them from working horrendously long hours to produce the papers I wanted; these set out all the information available to us about the state of the economy and its capacity to meet the aspirations of the interest groups represented at the Summit. These groups in turn, often after consultation with relevant government departments, presented their own position papers for consideration by all participants, In particular, the ACTU's paper emerged after intensely argued discussion between its experts and senior Treasury officials.

The chemistry of the Summit was remarkable. Tough minded captains of industry mingled, often for the first time, with equally hard nosed unionists and developed a respect which they mutually found both surprising and rewarding. Delegates responded positively to my welcoming remarks that they all had a common interest in securing real economic growth as a basis for achieving improved standards of life for everyone. And they did this in a way which had ongoing benefits for the nation.

The climate was created for the tough decisions that needed to be made to accommodate new social expenditures within a framework of recognisable fiscal responsibility. The concept of the Summit was continued by the creation of two bodies - the Economic and Planning Advisory Council and the Prices Surveillance Authority which were part of the Accord arrangements cemented at the Summit.

In the new environment flowing from the Summit industrial disputes declined dramatically. From being a potential barrier to investment, our meshing of industrial relations with the conduct of macro economic policy came to be seen as a plus by the rest of the world. Within this new culture of reconciliation we were able to achieve recovery with the delivery of more than the half million new jobs promised in the first three years of government. And, importantly for the longer term we were also able to establish the basis for the reconstruction of the Australian economy -lower tariffs, a more competitive financial and banking structure, and more efficient work practices.

Economic governance is not simply the achievement of growth for its own sake but the creation of a more equitable society. Australians in this new climate came to accept, and I believe be proud of, fundamental changes directed to that end. Without being exhaustive I would like to mention youth education, women and the aged. From one of the lowest retention rates in the developed world, Australia's proportion of children staying on to Year 12 was more than doubled in our period of office. Affirmative action programs greatly increased the participation and status of women across the industrial workplace and the professions. And - in part by denying or limiting pensions to the asset rich, a principle now entrenched but at the time attacked by conservatives as outrageous and shocking - we were able to deliver to pensioners their long held aspiration of a pension rate equal to 25% of average weekly earnings.

I do not refer to these achievements with some sense of complacent pride. Obviously we made mistakes and I think particularly of our misreading of the economic situation after the stockmarket crash of October 1987. Like others, we underestimated the resilience of the market economies and ran a loose monetary policy for too long. When corrective action became necessary as we got into difficulties on the external account, interest rates had to be forced up to more than 20 per cent. We certainly burst the boom. But in this whole process many ordinary Australians paid a heavy economic and social price in unemployment, bankruptcy and the personal traumas that accompany these humiliations - a fact, as I've said before, I deeply regret.

No set of values can therefore guarantee consistently good government. The capacity for misjudgment is inherent in human nature. But I do deeply believe that without something like the value system that I have adumbrated, government will do less than justice to the qualities and the legitimate hopes of the Australian people. With their willingness to participate in dialogue on policy and their intrinsic good humour, no people in the world provide its national leadership with better material to shape its destiny for a bright future.

In turning, now, to some of the major challenges facing those who will have that responsibility of leadership into the future there will inevitably appear to be a degree of partisanship in what I have to say. My concern, however is not with political point-scoring. Rather it is a passionate appeal that we maximise our chances of meeting these challenges by adopting an approach of inclusiveness. Government should harness the positive cooperation-operation which the Australian people have shown they are prepared to deliver.

No issue is more likely to jeopardise the cohesion of our society in the foreseeable future than the question of our relations with our Aboriginal population. The last words I spoke as Prime Minister on the 20th December 1991 in accepting the Barunga Statement for permanent display in Parliament House were:

...what we've got to understand is that, if you're really serious in this country as you come to the end of this century, the first century of our existence as a nation, and you want proudly to take Australia into the 21st Century there is no chance that you're going to be able to do that unless you do have a reconciliation. Personally I would like to see that embodied in a document. I think it is infinitely more preferable that we have the courage to do that. But it is also true that the document itself, in one sense, is not the important thing. The important thing is what's in our minds and in our hearts.

Thanks to the dedicated work of my Ministers, Gerry Hand and his successor Robert Tickner, and the cooperation of the Opposition we got the processes of reconciliation off to a good start with the creation of the Council of Aboriginal Reconciliation made up of fourteen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives and eleven non-Aboriginal representatives. Unfortunately, these processes have been derailed by the controversy surrounding the Wik decision.

I believe it would be nothing less than a tragedy for Australia, and how we are perceived by the rest of the world, if we were to allow the present stalemate to degenerate into a race-based election on the government's current proposals. This situation is avoidable. I believe that resolute and compassionate leadership and basic commonsense can produce an honorable and effective outcome. There is not sufficient time this evening to consider all the ramifications of this issue but let me go to what I see as the fundamental points of principle and process that need to be accepted and followed to achieve that outcome.

First, we must understand the intrinsic significance of the land to traditional Aboriginal people. We white Australians who have been nurtured in a Christian civilisation should have no difficulty in acknowledging the innate mysteries of religious belief. As one brought up from my earliest days in a religious household I still find perplexing many of the central tenets of the Christian dogma, but this does not diminish my readiness to respect the beliefs of so many others in our society who hold them as the foundation of their way of life. For our traditional Aboriginal communities their beliefs, their gods, are inseparable from the land. We may not ourselves be able to comprehend their beliefs but we should respect them. We must understand in other words, that Aboriginal commitment to ownership of, or access to, land is based not only on a legal perception of prior rights but on a spiritual bond with the land.

Second, pastoralists have the right to operate and develop their properties both as a matter of their personal and of the national interest. Aboriginal leaders do and must accept this within an achievable framework which gives effect to their desire for reasonable opportunities for traditional hunting and fishing and access to sites of spiritual significance. In this regard the observation by Rick Farley, the former Executive Director of the National Farmers' Federation, on 7th May 1997, is important:

...the Aboriginal people ...have said that they would concede the validation of all rights necessary to operate a modern pastoral property.

Third, the mining industry has been and will remain important to Australia's economic development and ability to provide improved standards of living for all our people. Just as it is inaccurate to give a general depiction of aborigines as being anti-mining so is it unfair to portray the mining industry generally as being unsympathetic to the Aboriginal people or unwilling to negotiate meaningfully with them. The evidence contradicts these unhelpful characterisations.

To mention just a few examples I refer first, in Queensland to the Century Zinc agreement of May 1997 between RTZ-CRA and twelve Aboriginal groups, with the support of the State Government, which will enable the establishment of one of the world's biggest zinc mines with a forecast annual production of 780,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate. Despite the protracted process, Mr Ian Williams, managing director of Century Zinc said: "I think negotiation is the right way to resolve these matters."

Second, in Western Australia there is (a) the agreement between the Balangarri Aboriginal Corporation and Striker Resources covering both exploration and mining phases for extensive diamond exploration on Oombulgurrie Reserve north west of Wyndham; (b) the Murrin Murrin Agreement with Anaconda under which production has begun on the site in the north east goldfields; and (c) a similar agreement between the same Aboriginal group and a group of companies, designated for this purpose as the North East Mining Forum, on protocols to undertake exploration on nine million hectares of highly prospective country in the same region.

Third, in South Australia we have the "Gawler Craton" agreement covering widescale exploration between a number of Aboriginal groups and several mining companies. Fourth, in the Northern Territory I am particularly pleased - as I am critical of them later in these remarks - to point out that CRA (Rio Tinto) has acted impeccably in their negotiations with the Aboriginal people to produce the Walgundu Agreement 1995. (The company was also involved honourably in the Century Zinc negotiations.) Writing in the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy Bulletin, December 1996, an officer of the Northern Land Council said:

..CRAE acknowledged the ties that Aboriginal people have with their land...
The principal components of the agreement for the Aboriginal people were the protection of sacred sites, employment and training opportunities, environmental management, and some compensation for disturbance to the country. In this way CRAE formally recognised their usage as a resource which the Aboriginal people believe is and always will be part of the land. The compensation will benefit all the community..Surely this is the future for the exploration and mining industry in their relationships with Aboriginal people.

It is developments like this which led Galarrwuy Yunupingu to say in June of last year:

The Northern Territory experience gives us confidence that we can connect the symbols and the substance to deliver the practical outcomes.

On the basis of the basic principles I have outlined, I turn to the question of process. I believe the Prime Minister should call leaders of the Aboriginal people, pastoralists and the mining industry to Canberra immediately. He should say to them that issues of the most fundamental importance to Australian society, and how we are seen in the world, are at stake, and that these issues demand a broad vision by all of them. He should say that he intends to sit down with them in the Cabinet room for however long it takes In an attempt to reach a basis of agreement. This involves no loss of face, nor is it an abrogation of leadership. On the contrary, it would be the presence of strong and imaginative leadership.

The Prime Minister demonstrated an admirable flexibility at the recent Constitutional Convention a flexibility which, to his credit, Kim Beazley warmly acknowledged. This in fact raises the question of whether it would not be a good idea to invite the Leader of the Opposition to be part of such a negotiation process. It would be a bold and unusual move but I do not believe that either the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition welcome the prospect of an election based in any way on race. These issues, if not properly handled, could wound our country for generations to come. They warrant a bold and healing response.

My faith in the process of bringing conflicting parties together and locking them into negotiation stems from a long experience in Australian industrial relations. I turn now to that subject for it, too, has the potential to convulse and do long term damage to our society. I repeat at the outset that I accept that as a result of the 1996 election this government has a mandate to make legislative changes in this field. It has done so and it is not my concern, here, to canvass my points of disagreement with those changes.

Rather, I want to express my strong apprehension that in two particular areas - the stevedoring and mining industries - the government's attitude is encouraging an atmosphere of confrontation which can lead to dangerous outcomes for Australia. I preface what I have to say with two observations. First, I believe it is unfair, and unhelpful, for the government to approach these issues with a mind-set that the trade union movement generally is opposed to reforms of work practices and is not prepared to cooperate- operate with government and employers to achieve better levels of economic performance. Again the evidence simply does not sustain such a notion.

Through the period of the Accord, 1983-1996, trade unions exercised remarkable wage restraint - while executive remuneration exploded. Real wages rose by less than 7% which was less than a third the rate of increases for executive salaries. At the same time widespread negotiated changes in work practices played a positive part in the dramatic increase in Australias exports of manufactured goods and services over the period - an increase of 430%. Exports of elaborately transformed manufactured goods increased at an annual rate of 16.6%.

This does not mean that there is not room for further improvement - and this brings me to my second observation. I can say on the basis of discussion with the unions directly concerned that they acknowledge and are prepared to accept the need for further negotiated changes in work practices in these two particular industries. What they will not accept, nor should they, is the attempt to impose changes under a hidden agenda - although in the case of Rio Tinto it is openly stated - which seeks the elimination of the trade union from the workplace. The unions' position is founded firmly on the undeniable proposition that in the industrial relationship there is never an equality of strength between the employer and the individual employee. To accept this proposition you do not have to embrace Comrade Karl Marx but need simply turn to the Bible of capitalism where the good prophet, Adam Smith, wrote more than 200 years ago in the Wealth of Nations:

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute and force the other into a compliance with their terms........ In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master, as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.

I do not deny that, at times, the countervailing power developed by trade unions may have been exercised irresponsibly, and without due regard for the broader national interest. But neither do many companies in the mining industry or the cosy coterie of employers on the waterfront come to the table with an impeccable record. There is no benefit however in looking for your favourite scapegoat in a less than ideal work-practice environment. The important point is that the unions do accept that it is less than ideal and are prepared to sit down and negotiate changes. Again, I believe that the Prime Minister would best serve the national interest if he were to summon the parties together, secure a joint commitment to improved productivity performance and then require them to enter into negotiations to achieve that result. If the government has a genuine desire for reform, and not confrontation, there are reasonable grounds for expecting a positive outcome from such a process.

But, however sensible we are in addressing these domestic issues it will avail us little if we are not diligent, with others, in securing a peaceable world. Those who spoke of a New World Order after the collapse of the Soviet Union were always too euphoric, although it is true that the world is a safer place for that reason. But the possibility of a localised dispute turning into a wider conflict is still with us. Australia should neither exaggerate its power to influence the course of events beyond our borders nor should we ignore the evidence that we can have a positive impact for good.

Our most important sphere of interest, and potential influence, is the Asian region. After an uncertain start an apparent hankering to return to the old priorities, the present government has come to recognise and act upon this truth. Australia is not Asian by ethnic composition although our country is being enriched by a growing number of Asians who are making Australia their home. We come to the Asian dialogue with many important advantages - we are not seen as a threat, we carry no baggage of past colonial oppression in the region. We are an important supplier of raw materials and, increasingly of manufactured goods and services and we are a significant provider of training. There were some 130,000 Asian students in various educational institutions in Australia last year.

Our relationship with China is supremely important. At some point in the first quarter of the next century China will become, in absolute terms, the largest economy in the world - a position, by the way, it has held for most of the last two and a half thousand years. We were able to reassure the Chinese that our defence relationship with the United States is not belligerent in nature and is not directed at them. It is good to see that in the continuing development of Australian-Sino relations under this Government there is a growing level of dialogue between Defence ministers and officials of the two countries.

Within the favourable framework Australia has established with the region under successive Prime Ministers, we have a vested interest in assisting - as our Government is now doing - the recovery from the Asian melt-down. This can be achieved if assistance is provided on the condition that there must be appropriate political and institutional reforms to create efficient and prudential banking and financial systems at arms' length from government. If these reforms are superimposed on the fundamentals which underpinned earlier high growth rates - high savings ratios, a commitment to relevant education, an openness to foreign capital and technology and an increasing commitment to liberalised international trade - there is reason for optimism.

Disraeli, Prime Minister for seven years, once wrote that "the British being subject to fogs and possessing a powerful middle class, require grave statesmen," a prescription to which he did not, himself, generally adhere. In my own case I saw the picture in lighter hues. Australians, in land of sun and sceptical about pretensions of class, wanted leaders who, while serious were capable of reflecting their own essentially cheerful and optimistic "fair-go" philosophy.

And certainly I don't want it to be thought that being Prime Minister is without its humorous side. The pleasure and the honour of the office comes from what can be achieved for the country but it has its lighter moments. John Howard recently joked about our problems in retaining our civility towards the obnoxious visitor from Romania the late President Ceausescu - and well he might. The Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stephen, and I had been briefed before his arrival on his execrable proclivities which included installing hidden cameras in the hotel bedrooms of his Ministers. As we waited at Fairbairn base for the monsters arrival the Governor-General, in his whimsical manner, asked me if I did the same thing. "Sir Ninian," I replied, "there wouldn't be enough film."

We were undoubtedly serious in purpose at all times but I wanted the office of Prime Minister and the conduct of my government to be in tune with those national characteristics of cheerfulness and optimism. It is all too easy in high office to become removed from the deep mainsprings of citizens' lives - their work, their sport, their social and cultural pursuits - which determine their attitudes and aspirations. Within the constraints imposed by the responsibilities of the job I therefore spent as much time as possible mixing with Australians at work, at sport and in their social and cultural life. This is not just a matter of good electoral politics - and who, in their right mind, would ignore that - but can play an important part in the processes of sound policy formulation.

After almost nine years as Prime Minister I can say that, at times, one must take unpopular decisions, and act against a prevalent opinion. But leadership that has lost the art of listening will ultimately lose the respect of the people and the responsibility for government which only they can bestow.

I conclude with the thought that one of the most disturbing features of democracies today is the increasing disdain in which politicians are held. As one who has been through it all, who knows personally the talent for weakness, error and self-inflicted injuries that goes with the profession, let me sound a warning, a different - perhaps unpopular - note in defence of politicians. Again, F.S. Oliver put it so wonderfully, albeit that the language of 1931 predated the gender revolution. And so with that reservation, and the hope of understanding from my female audience, I recommend his words:

Politicians are like the pedants in Montaignes essay: no one has a good word to say for them. Even ordinary people like ourselves find it impossible to rid our minds of the delusion that 'in essentials' (as we would put it) we are better men than these noisy, limelight-loving busybodies. And as we read our newspapers, we are encouraged in the comfortable belief, that our own moral and intellectual superiority, though we wear it modestly, is never for a moment in danger of being overlooked by Almighty God..... The magnates of the popular press, secure behind their private telephone entanglements, sneer at his want of courage; and the man- of-the-world - most ingenuous of dotterels - takes up the same tale from his club armchair.

.......What humbug it is, for the most part! And what a welter should we be in, if the politicians, taking these lectures to heart, were to hand over the management of public affairs to their critics!

.......It is this uncertainty, with its various consequences, that makes politics the most hazardous of all manly professions. If there is not another in which a man can hope to do so much good to his fellow- creatures, neither is there any in which, by a cowardly act or by a mere loss of nerve, he may do such widespread harm. Nor is there another in which he may so easily lose his own soul. But danger is the inseparable companion of honour. The greatest deeds in history were not done by people who thought of safety first. It is possible to be too much concerned even with one's own salvation. There will not be much hope left for humanity when men are no longer willing to risk their immortal as well as their mortal parts. With all the temptations, dangers and degradations that beset it, politics is still. I think, the noblest career that any man can choose

One of the most encouraging features of the recent Constitutional Convention was the intelligent, articulate contribution of a number of young men and women. I trust that more and more such people will enter parliamentary life aspiring to be part of Oliver's "endless adventure" - "the governing of men" and, may I add, women.