Launch of Dr James Curran publication: "The Power of Speech - Australian Prime Ministers Defining the National Image
Sydney
6 May 2004
Thank MUP and James Curran for invitation to launch your book The Power of Speech Australian Prime Ministers Defining the National Image.
First met James in June 1999 when came to my office as a student from Sydney University to interview me for his PHD thesis which, as so often does, has now turned into a book.
To assist further with his work, James was the first student to avail himself of the resources of the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library at the University of South Australia and in October 199, spent a week there under the thorough watch of librarian, Jenni Jeremy (present tonight). He also participated in the inaugural Hawke librarys national conference held in 2001 and the Library was pleased to contribute $1600 towards the publication of this book.
James is the visiting scholar for 2004 at the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library (librarian Kandy-Jane Henderson present tonight) which I think, highlights the importance of the establishment and funding of such a rich vein of resources for students.
I agree with Paul Kellys first sentence in his foreword. This is an important and timely analysis of how Australian Prime Ministers in the post 1960s have tried to activate a new sense of Australian identity.
I emphasise timely for, increasingly, as one deeply concerned for the future of our country, what I look for in my reading about politics is not just good history which this undoubtedly is but analysis which is likely to help focus public thinking and debate on what is happening to Australia today what, under Mr Howard, is happening to values that we historically liked to associate with the Australian character and image and what, under this Prime Minister, is the image being projected to the rest of the world, about Australias role and place in that world.
And this book, James, and Ladies and Gentlemen does help to provide such a focus.
Before making some observations about those issues in the light of the historical context of the books earlier chapters let me share one anecdote with you, which I am assured is not apocryphal.
Page 15 James refers to the spectre of the speechwriter The Fraser story. Comments about the Prime Minister/speechwriter relationship.
In his introduction and specifically in his first chapter and then throughout the book James felicitously sets out the historical context against which we five Prime Ministers from Fraser to Howard, in our various ways, addressed ourselves to the issue of the Australian identity.
He, rightly, asserts that the early 1960s, was a critical turning point in how Australians and their leaders had to assess that identity. For it was from that point that the predominance of the British relationship was brought seriously into question and then gradually dissipated and the need to define Australian nationalism more specifically in terms beyond an extension of an adapted British identity in the Great South Land became more pressing.
At the outbreak of the Second World War three factors demography, trade and security bound Australia tightly to the UK and made so many of us and the rest of the world see us through a British prism.
Then, some 97% of our people were of Anglo-Celtic stock, 61% of our exports went to the UK and our security was essentially anchored in the relationship with the UK.
The Second World War and it aftermath began the unravelling of some of those elements John Curtins famous, and correct, call after Pearl Harbour that Australia now looked most directly to the US for assistance in the fight for survival against Japan was the beginning of the transformation away from Britain to America as our major security ally.
And of course, the Curtin/Chifley decision to initiate the vast post-war immigration program was the beginning of a massive demographic diversification with people from more than 150 countries coming to make Australia their home.
But for all that, until the early 60s Britain remained critically central to Australians external relationships. All that changed dramatically and irreversibly, with Britains decision in the 60s to seek, and then, gain entry to the EEC and thus end Commonwealth trade preference and to withdraw, militarily from East of Suez. The linchpins in the Australia/UK relationship demography, trade and security had unravelled.
Make the point that today 3% of our exports to the UK and 60% to Asia.)
From our beginnings as the nation of Australia in 1901 there had of course been characteristics which we, rightly, described as distinctly Australian and characteristics which distinguished us from the Poms. Mateship, the fair go, the lack of class consciousness but in looking at ourselves, and as others saw us, there was an essential Britishness about us we fought their wars and we carried their passports (Holt to his credit changed that absurdity).
So the challenge for Australian leaders was, and has been, to guide this country through times of unprecedented internal and external change, not just to an understanding of who we are, what we stand for but by policy, much more than speeches, to harness the great human and material resources of this nation for equitable economic growth, and security at home and abroad.
It is my unshakeable conviction which I believe is confirmed by this book that it has been Labor leaders who have passed this test and that our current Prime Minister is the last, and most objectionable, in a line of Conservative leaders who have put at risk what Australians, I believe, would like to imagine as the essential values and characteristics of our nation.
There is not sufficient time to develop that proposition in all its internal and external ramifications. Let me therefore briefly test the proposition in terms of a consistent conservative pattern of failure to understand the changing global geo-political environment and an abject refusal to assert an Australian independence of character in policy-making in that environment.
John Howard says that Menzies is his hero and I am quite prepared to say that Howard has some basic things in common with his hero.
Menzies, wrapped in a time-warp of a cherished past of Empire, simply did not understand that the world was never going to be the same again after the Second World War. In trenchantly criticising Chifleys support of moves towards Indonesian independence, Menzies said that Chifleys government was contributing to a doctrine which would justify the expulsion of all colonial powers in south and southeast Asia a dreadful prospect for Australia.
Menzies monumental inability to understand the winds of change led to Australias gratuitous insertion into the American adventurism in Vietnam in which, never let it be forgotten, 508 Australians lost their lives.
And James, you, very fortunately provide a fascinating key to the continuity of Conservative leaders commitment to go lock-step with dangerous US adventurism at the expense of independent Australian policy-making.
In your chapter covering my Prime Ministership, you quote from a 1976 speech in which I criticised the Vietnam conflict as a bloody, senseless and immoral war. And you go on to refer to my comments about Ronald Reagan, then a very gung-ho aspirant for Presidential honour: Mr Reagan would have us relive on the international stage his wild west celluloid fantasies in which, cast as the hero, he triumphed after quick-draw six gun shoot outs. Mr Fraser seems anxious to try out for the role of deputy in this extravaganza.
No speech-writer there Ladies and Gentlemen but you would all, I think, have to admit a little prescient.
Malcolm, of course, has learned the error of his ways but not our Prime
Minister.
With the Deputy Sheriffs badge firmly pinned to his jacket, John Howard, has taken Australia under false pretences into the bloody, senseless and immoral war in Iraq.
I remind my fellow Australians again of the Prime Ministers precise words on 13th March 2003 I couldnt justify on its own a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime. Ive never advocated that. Much in all as I despise the regime.regime change has not been one of our policy objectivesour goal is the removal of weapons of mass destruction.
This misleading and dangerous nonsense should be remembered alongside President Bushs statement five days later (18th March 2003) that the terrorist threat will be diminished the moment Saddam Hussein is disarmed.
My friends this simple truth should be repeated until it is etched into the consciousness of the Australian people: terrorist threats to Australians at home and abroad have been significantly increased by putting up our name in neon lights alongside the US and UK in this falsely based act of war a fact attested to by the intelligence agencies of each country.
James, you rightly say in your chapter on John Howard: He is the least at ease with the new Australia of the post-Menzies era. This was disgracefully demonstrated by the political oxygen he allowed Pauline Hanson after her racist diatribes. And just as he is least at ease domestically, so like his hero Robert Menzies he puts Australians at risk by his refusal to adopt a rugged Australian independence in the conduct of our external relations.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank James Curran for writing this book. I recommend it above all else because I hope that it will make Australians think more intensely and clearly about the need to elect a Labor government which will restore the reality and the image of an Australia committed to the fair go at home and to a proud, independent contribution to a more secure international community.