NEW FEDERALISM OR NATIONAL UNITY?
JOHN CURTIN MEMORIAL LECTURE-1977
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NEW FEDERALISM OR NATIONAL UNITY?JOHN CURTIN MEMORIAL LECTURE-1977 |
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Curtin's
Contribution to Australian Unity
So secure is Curtin's place in the history of our country and the affections
of the Labor Party that we scarcely feel it necessary to seek new evidence
of his greatness or foresight. Yet even the most cursory study of his period
in office can yield fresh insights on his life and work. He is, of course,
still justly honoured above all as the leader of the Government that in
a time of supreme danger ensured the security and survival of Australia.
That record, however, should not obscure his illustrious contribution to
Australia's peace time development or the lessons it carries for Labor today.
Thirty-six years after Curtin became Prime Minister, the principles for
which he fought, and many of the specific reforms he pioneered, are under
challenge from the most conservative Government in our history.
Curtin's signal accomplishment as a leader was to set the seal on our national
unity. Establishing and consolidating that unity was the key to his efforts
in rallying the nation for war. He was our first and greatest nationalist
Prime Minister; but his nationalism was not just a catchcry for the duration
of the war, as Hughes's nationalism had been a generation earlier. It was
a fundamental and pervading element in his character and style of government.
Australian nationalism was born, not with the Anzac landing, but with the
response of the Curtin Labor Government to the external threat to our security
in 1941. Curtin's nationalism was a lasting and permanent projection of
his ambitions for the Australian people. It was also an embodiment of the
aspirations of the people at the time.
Those aspirations were for unity and nationhood in place of old fashioned
divisions and State rights; for national independence in place of colonial
subservience; for planned national growth and security in place of the haphazard
practices of the past. Curtin knew that Australia needed unity and national
purpose to survive in war; he knew also that only a truly united and purposeful
nation would prosper in peace.
It is timely to put his record in this light because it will help us to
understand the enormity and folly of the present trends in our national
life. What would Curtin have made of the Fraser Government? What would he
have thought of the new federalism? I shall return to these questions in
a moment. Beyond doubt, the developments in Australian politics in the past
two years would have been anathema to Curtin--very probably incomprehensible
to a man of his temperament and vision. I am not thinking only of the attacks
on living standards and the dismantling of initiatives in welfare and community
services. The fragmentation of national will, the fostering of State rivalries
and divisions, the pandering to State rights and other colonial dogmas,
the gross malapportionment of our national resources implicit in Mr Fraser's
new federalist doctrines--all of this is a turning back, a turning away,
from the spirit of unity and nationhood that Curtin espoused. After all,
his great unifying message and his great personal example were concerned
not just with the war but with the whole course of Australia's future development
and character as a nation. The reforms and initiatives of the wartime and
postwar Labor Governments, most of them the result of Curtin's inspiration,
were designed to chart a course for Australia and establish a set of principles
in our national life which would carry us into a new era of postwar growth
and maturity.
I want to deal tonight with the most important of those principles and show
how the Fraser Government, in subtle but profoundly important ways, aims
to alter the fundamental assumptions of our political life. I am not suggesting
that the methods and priorities for governments in Curtin's time are an
infallible guide to the actions of governments today. Quite clearly the
problems we face now are of a different order and a different kind. Even
in a nation that had experienced the rigours of depression, there was no
way that the Curtin or Chifley Governments could have prepared us for the
novel and seemingly intractable economic difficulties that beset the western
nations in the last quarter of the 20th century. The problems of resource
management, of mineral development, of environmental protection, of structural
economic change, of rural decline--to mention a few--were largely unknown
in Australia in Curtin's day. Nevertheless, I believe it is true that Curtin
inspired certain guidelines for our national life that must still serve
as our inspiration in the difficult conditions of today's world.
Full
Employment
The first of these is full employment. Full employment was laid down as
an objective of Labor policy during the period of the Curtin Government
and proclaimed in a White Paper by its successor. Every subsequent government
adopted full employment as a national goal; the Fraser Government has been
the first to discard it. It is the first government to abrogate a responsibility
for preserving the livelihoods of the Australian people. No one denies that
the achievement of full employment is a more difficult task today than it
was in the postwar years or in the growth decades of the 1950s and 1960s.
Those difficulties only make the objective more urgent and important. For
it is precisely in times of economic difficulty and personal insecurity
that a Government's commitment to full employment is most needed. That commitment
has now been abandoned, and the Fraser Government does not bother to conceal
the fact.
I mention full employment as a cardinal principle of the Curtin Government
because it was far more than an economic objective. Curtin undoubtedly saw
it as the first test of a government's social responsibility. The Liberals
still treat the employment statistics as a mere indicator--usually the least
important indicator--of economic recovery rather than the definition of
recovery itself. They still seek to evade their responsibility by pointing
to rising unemployment when Labor was in office. Everyone knows that unemployment
in Australia increased between 1972 and 1975 when the world was first gripped
by recession; but it increased in that time in every major western country.
Between the end of 1972 and the end of 1975 unemployment went up in every
OECD country. The difference is that while unemployment has since fallen
in other western countries, in Australia it has steadily risen.
It is now clear that behind the attempts to blame Labor for this problem
is a massive Government drive to institutionalise high unemployment. Unemployment
is no longer just a difficulty or a problem: it is, we are now told, an
inevitable fact of life. The Treasurer has more than once stated in the
past month that we can look forward to continuing high levels of unemployment
for the foreseeable future. Already we have had unemployment in Australia
of more than 5% of the workforce in every month since last September--easily
the longest and worst period of sustained unemployment since the Depression.
According to the Statistician, one in every six young people in the labour
force was unemployed in February. Of those between 15 and 19 years, more
than a third--33.9%--had been unemployed at some time during 1976. In other
words, more than a third of Australia's youth--the best educated generation
Australia has produced--has tasted unemployment under this Government and
the scars will stay with them for the rest of their lives. What should worry
us about the figures is not so much the incompetence of the Government but
its attempt to condition Australians to unprecedented and largely unnecessary
new levels of industrial stagnation and human suffering.
Unemployment is only one aspect of our current economic malaise though it
happens to be the one where the Liberal retreat from established and humane
social principles is most conspicuous. The fact is that in practially every
area of economic management the Fraser Government has made matters worse.
Unemployment is worse, the deficit is worse, business confidence is worse,
interest rates are higher, industrial production and retail sales remain
stagnant or in decline, the value of the dollar is down, inflation is still
running at more than 12%. I confess that if there is one myth about the
Liberals that I have never been able to understand it is the myth of their
superior economic competence. We should never forget that the highest inflation
in Australia's history occurred under Menzies. It was Liberal incompetence
and irresponsibility that sowed the seeds of our inflation in 1973 and 1974
and it is Liberal incompetence and callousness that is prolonging our current
recession.
I don't want to canvass here the particular remedies needed to deal with
our current problems. The point I make in this context is that never before
has there been a greater need to affirm our belief in full employment as
an objective of democratic governments. Never before has there been a greater
need for national unity and national direction in achieving this goal. The
Fraser Government's retreat from national unity and cohesive national purpose
is the greatest single obstacle to sustained recovery. Full employment and
genuine recovery will not be achieved by leaving economic remedies to the
States. They will not come about if we expect the States to sort our their
problems unaided.
Uniform
Taxation
When Curtin introduced the system of uniform taxation in Australia in 1942
he had more in mind than the efficient and equitable financing of the war
effort. By that reform--the most important in our economic structure since
Federation--he was fashioning an instrument for marshalling the nation's
revenues and resources, an instrument for national prosperity. Certainly
it placed an important new power and responsibility in the hands of the
central government, but it was essentially a measure for national unity,
for strengthening the sinews of national government and promoting equity
among the States. It was part of an historical movement towards nationhood,
and it was accepted in that spirit by all governments and all parties. Curtin
himself said, when introducing the uniform tax bills in May 1942:
Whatever be the character of the Australian political structure--a structure which consists of a Federal Government and six State Governments--the fact is that all these instrumentalities are the agencies of the one people. We must look at this matter not only in the light of immediate requirments but also in the light of the evolution of the federal system.
There can be do doubt that the new federalism--with
its return of State taxing powers--is intended to end uniform taxation as
we know it and as Curtin intended it. Once we admit the principle that the
economic prosperity of a particular State is largely the responsibility
of that State--and can be determined by the particular taxes and surcharges
it chooses to raise--we destroy the whole theory of national responsibility
for our economic affairs.
For nearly two years, until the Premiers' Conference last April, the Federal
Liberals sought to cover up and distort the real meaning of their new federalism.
It is now clear that the Prime Minister has on his hands a major rebellion
by the Premiers--not from the Labor Premiers alone, but equally, indeed
more vehemently, from the non-Labor Premiers. Their objections take different
forms and have different motivations, but all the Premiers see clearly the
real intention behind the Prime Minister's protestations of high principle
and goodwill. The Prime Minister wants to pass the buck to the States for
all the failings of governments. Whenever there is some odium or blame to
be faced--for raising taxes, for failing to meet people's legitimate needs,
for failing to produce sound economic policies, for starving essential services
of necessary funds--it is the States which would have to accept that blame.
High-flown talk about a fixed share of certain Federal revenues will not
guarantee the States an adequate or rising proportion of the nation's financial
resources for their responsibilities.
The new federalism means dual taxation; it means double taxation; it means
the end of the system of uniform taxation which has served Australia well
since Curtin's days; it means the withdrawal of the Federal Government from
all creative programs and all responsibilities for the people's welfare
and the nation's advancement. Far from signalling a new era of cooperation
between the States and the Federal Government, it means the end of cooperation,
the end of any joint and shared responsibility for the needs of the Australian
people. Under the Fraser federalism the real creative cooperation between
State governments and Federal Government--the cooperation that has been
the basis of all new initiatives and all constructive ventures for the people's
welfare since the war--would be destroyed in reality and in spirit. The
Premiers have seen through it and the people have seen through it--not just
the Labor Premiers and the Labor States but the Liberal States. Even Mr
Bjelke-Petersen's Government has rejected this policy out of hand.
Let us be quite clear that the Fraser federalism is not meant to kill off
Labor's programs alone, but any cooperative Federal-State venture. It would
spell the end of Federal initiatives not only by my Government but also
by succesive Liberal governments--the Menzies, Holt, Gorton and McMahon--governments
alike. This is the first Liberal Government to undo the work of its own
Liberal predecessors. Every initiative in public welfare or national development
since the war has been taken by the Federal Government or with its participation.
There was no welfare housing in this country before the Federal Government
made it happen. How many universities would there be and of what standard
would they be but for Federal involvement during and since the war? What
would be the prospects of our railways, hospitals, schools or technical
colleges if their recent development had been left to the States alone?
Have the States been able to preserve our heritage? Have they been able
to service the postwar suburbs and resource centres? It is inevitable that
initiatives in these areas must now come, as they have come since Curtin's
day, from the Federal Government. The Federal Government alone can raise
direct taxes on individuals and corporations in an efficient and equitable
manner; it has a constitutional monopoly in indirect taxes--customs and
excise, including sales tax. The States lack the means to raise revenues
efficiently and equitably because the revenue measures available to them--apart
from income tax and death duties--consist of licences or franchises. Their
methods of financing services from their own resources are inequitable or
incomplete. Adequate public services and public accountability are not to
be secured by resurrecting the financial arrangements of an earlier era
but by accepting the respective responsibilities required in a modern nation.
Uniform taxation was preserved in this country because we recognised, as
a nation, that the States were so disparate and diverse, so unequal in their
populations and their tax resources, that without a coordinating and overriding
Federal responsibility for growth, welfare and development, the very ideal
of federation would be at risk. Pressures and disparities among the States
would produce a grossly unequal and therefore divided nation. Every successful
Federal initiative, every attempted Federal initiative, has produced benefits
for our people and drawn us together more closely as a nation. Without Federal
intervention there would be no unbroken rail guages between the States;
urban transport, particulary the railways, would still be burdened with
antiquated equipment and rolling stock; young people would still have inadequate
and unequal opportunities for secondary and tertiary education; and new
initiatives in health centres, the environment and child care would not
have been contemplated.
Education
To return Australia to prewar federalism is to ignore the immense national
growth in the demand for government services during the past 30 years. The
responsibilities of governments are vastly more extensive, complex and costly
than they were. Education is a striking example. There would be scant opportunities
for higher education today, and very little decent secondary education,
if it were not for Federal participation and initiatives. The Federal Government,
with primary responsibility for economic management, fiscal policy and the
allocation of resources, simply cannot ignore the rising demand for such
services. In 1947, 6.3% of young people of university age were receiving
tertiary education; by 1975 the proportion had nearly trebled to 17.7%.
In 1945 Federal expenditure on education was less than $10 million. The
demand for education has grown so much in the past 30 years that total expenditure
on education by the Federal Government this financial year is estimated
at $2,204 million. Population growth and inflation alone cannot account
for this growth. Growth of this order has been a feature of the economies
of every western country.
It is instructive to look at the effects of the Fraser Government's policies
on education, with particular reference to this State. Four weeks ago Senator
Carrick stated that grants to the States for universities would be cut in
the next Budget. States that want to maintain their universities or cater
for new enrolments will have to find additional funds themselves or allow
services to decline. They will have to cut down the number of students or
impose fees. The people of Western Australia used to enjoy the only free
university in Australia until fees were introduced under the Menzies Government's
compulsion. Under the new federalism, how long will it be before fees are
imposed again? And how long will those fees go on rising? Every Federal
government since the war has made an increased commitment to universities
in the Federal Budget. However stringent the economic situation, the commitment
to future generations, expressed in the growth of tertiary education services,
was considered inviolate. The Fraser Government is making the first reduction
in the Federal commitment to education since the war--and needless to say,
it is doing so in defiance of its promises.
We should never forget that the principle of Federal responsibility for
education--widely attributed to Menzies--is in fact a legacy of the Curtin
Government. The Fraser Government is wriggling away from it. The first Universities
Commission was set up by regulation in February 1943. The Commission was
empowered to supervise enrolments and assist certain students as part of
the Government's plans for the regulation of manpower in wartime.
After the war, the Federal Government, with its responsibility for repatriation,
began helping ex-servicemen to complete their education and undertake tertiary
courses. In 1945 Parliament passed an Education Act which created the Office
of Education. One of the statutory functions of this Office was "to
advise the Minister concerning the grant of financial assistance to the
States and to other authorities for education purposes". In 1946, through
the Social Services Referendum, the Commonwealth Parliament was granted
power to provide benefits to students. Just before the 1949 elections the
Labor Government had drafted proposals to provide secondary and tertiary
scholarships to students. The incoming Menzies Government rejected the proposals
for secondary scholarships but accepted those for universities. The first
of these Commonwealth Scholarships were granted in 1951. In 1957, with the
universities overloaded and dependent on Federal funds, Sir Keith Murray's
committee reported on their needs and in 1959 a new Universities Commission
was established by statute. Since then, universities have benefited from
substantially increased funds and have been able to plan confidently ahead
on the basis of grants determined on a regular and rational assessment of
their needs. If the Fraser Government succeeds in reducing the Federal commitment
to education, and forcing universities to restore fees, it will be reversing
a principle that has been steadily developed and strengthened over the past
34 years.
Of course there is the usual softening-up process to condition us for cuts
in education spending, just as we are being conditioned for inevitable higher
unemployment.
You will have noticed a cynical new conservative argument to the effect
that what is needed in education is not more money but more rigorous standards
and a return to the disciplines of old-fashioned classrooms. I recall Sir
Charles Court, during your State election campaign in January, proclaiming
the virtues of the three R's, as if he had made some novel educational discovery.
I don't disparage the three R's--though I sometimes wonder if all the Premiers
have mastered them. Nor do I assert that money means everything in education.
What Labor asserts most staunchly is that where money is needed--and education
of any sort is increasingly expensive--it must be allocated first of all
to the schools that need it most. That is the essence of Labor's policy;
it is the basis of the Schools Commission's charter; and it was the key
to my Government's success in eliminating from our educational system the
grossest inequalities and the worst manifestations of sectarian bitterness.
Whenever you hear conservatives saying that less money is needed for education,
or that money is not the answer, you never hear them say that less money
should go to their private schools or their own privileged sector. It is
only Government schools that should make do with less.
Housing
and Health
Education is not the only target
of the Fraser Government's retrenchments. Across the whole field of government
activity it is cancelling Federal involvement and ending or severely curtailing
Federal expenditures--not in the interests of economic management but in
pursuance of its queer and reactionary federalism. Its attack on Medibank--another
broken promise--has already had the effect of restoring fees for standard
ward hospital treatment. Every State in Australia had free hospitals under
agreements made between the States and the Chifley Government. The Menzies
Government discontinued those agreements. Labor restored them in a new form.
The Fraser Government has broken them again.
The Federal Government's involvement in housing--indeed, any government
involvement in housing--originated with the Curtin Government. In April
1943 it appointed a Commonwealth Housing Commission which visited all States
to study housing needs. In its final report, tabled in Parliament, it recommended
an active government responsibility for housing. The report stated:
We consider it essential that, in Australia, the government should accept responsiblity for ensuring adequate housing of the people, especially the low income group. This will involve supplementing on a large scale building undertaken by private enterprise.
The Australian Housing Corporation was
established by my Government in 1975 to provide for all home owners and
buyers within Federal jurisdiction the services hitherto available, through
the defence services homes scheme, to servicemen and ex-servicemen alone.
It was particularly intended to benefit low-income earners. The Fraser Government
has repealed this socialist legislation. Its attack on welfare housing--an
area for which my Government established almost total Federal responsiblity
after 1973--and its 45% cut in aged persons housing in the last Budget flout
the whole spirit of the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreements first
drawn up in Curtin's day and enacted by Chifley in 1945 and the aged persons
legislation enacted by Menzies in 1954.
It may be useful if I lay to rest two persistent myths about a Labor Government's
approach to public spending. The first is that because Labor believes in
Federal responsibility for our growth and community services it is necessarily
committed to ever-increasing Federal expenditures. I am not going to pretend
that a Labor Government would not commit more of our national resources
to, say, health, housing or education than the Fraser Government, but we
have never supposed that Federal outlays on our programs--or, for that matter,
our outlays to the States and local government--can grow without check.
Clearly there is a need at the moment for greater Federal outlays to stimulate
sectors of the economy and ameliorate the Fraser-Lynch recession, but Labor
has never advocated unlimited public spending and does not do so now. The
1973 Coombs Task Force made possible savings in government expenditure of
around $1,000 million in a full year. The Hayden Budget of 1975 actually
reduced, and sharply reduced, the rate of growth of Federal spending. Labor's
approach can be summarised as follows: whenever a social or community need
is identified, public money should be allocated where needs and priorities
demand it, and always consistently with the requirements of overall economic
management. The basis of Labor's approach is fairness and equity--not an
attempt to accomplish everything overnight, but to move steadily towards
our social goals, ensuring that the areas of greatest human need have the
first claim on the community's resources.
The second myth is that a Labor Government wants to run everything from
Canberra. This charge has a special potency in the more remote States, though
why people in so distant a region as the Pilbara, for example, should feel
any greater kinship or loyalty to Perth than they do to the Federal capital
is beyond my understanding. It is one of the tragedies of years of conservative
propaganda that the very name of the nation's capital has been made a dirty
word--a symbol of distant oppression and bureaucracy. Labor has never sought
to run everything from Canberra. What we want to ensure is that public resources
are so distributed that every State, every region and every local council
will have the means to carry out its work and, as far as practicable, fulfil
its responsibilities to the community. How local funds are allocated and
used will always be a matter for local authorities or, where appropriate,
for the States themselves. Labor is in fact far more the party of local
autonomy and devolution of power than the Liberals. No Federal Government
before mine had ever introduced laws or referendums to help local government
or involved local government representatives in constitutional discussions.
Constitutional
Reform
Curtin not only had a realistic grasp of Labor's social and legislative
role, he also saw clearly the need for long-term constitutional reform.
In 1944 his Government tried strenuously to equip the Federal Parliament
with the necessary powers for postwar reconstruction and development. I
might say that it was very much due to Curtin's efforts that I first became
concerned about the Australian Constitution. In 1961, delivering the second
of these lectures under the auspices of the University of Western Australia
branch of the Labor Party, I said:
My interest in constitutional matters stems from the time when John Curtin was Prime Minister. The Commonwealth Parliament's powers were then at their most ample and it was constitutionally, if not always politically, more open to a Labor Government to carry out its policies than it is in peace time. John Curtin, however, saw that he was presiding over a passing phase. He was not content with the paradox that the Labor Party was free to enact its policies in times of war alone. Accordingly, in 1944 he sponsored a referendum to give the Federal Parliament postwar powers. His motives for holding the referendum were based on patriotism and experience. He argued the case with his full logic and eloquence. The opposition to the referendum was spurious and selfish. The arguments were false. My hopes were dashed by the outcome and from that moment I determined to do all I could to modernise the Australian Constitution.
Curtin's efforts in 1944 led to the referendum
in 1946, giving the Federal Parliament wider powers over social services.
With the passage of that referendum the power of the Chifley Government
to safeguard the individual security of Australians was immeasurably strengthened.
It was a step that was wholly consistent with the movement to unity and
nationhood that Curtin had inaugurated.
The question remains: Are we any closer today to the thorough-going constitutional
reform for which Curtin was working? I believe we are. I have explained
elsewhere that I no longer regard the Constitution as a serious impediment
to Labor's legislative program. My earlier pessimism on this subject derived
largely from the casuistry of High Court judgments 30 years ago, when Labor
legislation on banking, airlines and free medicine was blocked by preposterous
interpretations of Section 92 and the social services power. It must be
said that the High Court has improved since then. One of the significant
achievements of our three years in goveriment was to show how the powers
of the Constitution could be tested and used for the successful implementation
of Labor's program. None of the many challenges to Labor's legislation during
our term of office was upheld by the High Court. It is true that our bill
for a Petroleum and Minerals Authority (PMA) was declared invalid, but this
was due to an unrealistic interpretation of parliamentary procedures by
the majority of the Court and not to any doubts which the Court expressed
on the PMA proposal itself. The next Labor Government will be able, on the
basis of our experience, to approach its task with much greater confidence
and dispatch.
The real weakness of the Constitution, as I see it now, is its failure to
ensure the working of the democratic system or to guarantee the democratic
rights of Australians. Reforming the Constitution to safeguard democracy
will be the paramount duty for socialists in the future. I am confident
that such reform will eventually come about whatever the obstruction and
lying propaganda of the Premiers. The May referendums showed that even when
the Premiers and their friends in the Senate ran a spoiling campaign to
frustrate reform they could still be rebuffed on three out of four questions
and very nearly beaten on the other. The May referendums certainly proved
the absurdity of a Constitution that can prevent he passage of a referendum
which 62% of the voters favour. They also proved that the overwhelming majority
of Australians would never again allow devious Premiers or unscrupulous
senators to repeat the shameful manipulation of Senate numbers that we witnessed
in 1975. The people have declared that the stacking of the Senate for political
purposes will not be tolerated again. Conventions flouted by the Premiers
have now been enforced by the voters.
I doubt if people have grasped just how devious and dishonest the conservative
Premiers were during the referendums campaign in May. The proposal for simultaneous
elections had the unanimous support of delegates to the Constitutional Convention
in October. Neither Sir Charles Court and his delegation nor Mr Bjelke-Petersen
and his delegation opposed it. Yet both of them tried to wreck the referendum
when it was put to the people. Sir Charles Court's delegation also gave
its full support to the proposal that electors in the Territories should
be able to vote in referendums. At the same time his Government was sponsoring
High Court litigation which will, if successful, nullify the very referendum
the people have carried. The Constitution, as amended, now provides that
Territory citizens will have the right to vote in referendums where they
already possess the right to vote in House of Representatives elections.
Yet the Western Australian Government is challenging the right of the Territories
to representation in the House of Representatives--not in the Senate, but
in the House itself. If that challenge is successful the expressed wish
of the people would be overturned. The High Court should have no hesitation,
in view of the referendum result, in throwing out the Western Australian
case.
This rearguard obstruction to constitutional reform was not foreseen by
Curtin, yet no Prime Minister understood more clearly the need to reform
the Constitution to strengthen Australia's independence. He knew better
than any politician in his day that the popular aspirations for independence
would never be fulfilled while Australia remained--however tenuously or
symbolically--a colonial outpost. Curtin's government in 1942 passed the
legislation by which Australia formally adopted the Statute of Westminster.
My own view, which I have explained elsewhere, is that the Statute of Westminster
is no longer an instrument of Australian independence but an impediment
to it. Bul there can be no doubt of the importance of Curtin's move in 1942
as an assertion of Australian sovereignty and independence. Together with
his famous appeal to the United States, it represented the first uncompromising
rejection by an Australian Prime Minister of dominion status for this country.
Its example and message are still relevant today.
Curtin was convinced that despite the trappings and relics of colonialism
that survived in his time, the principles of responsible government were
nevertheless safely entrenched under the system of constitutional monarchy.
Two years ago, when delivering the Curtin Memorial Lecture in Camberra,
I recalled the circumstances of the great constitutional crisis in October
1941 that brought Curtin to the Prime Ministership. I said:
The first Curtin Government ... was a government formed solely through a majority of the House of Representatives and maintained solely at the will of the majority of the House of Representatives. Neither in attaining nor retaining the Prime Ministership did Curtin ever have to consider the state of the political parties in the Senate. Thus, in the most critical time in this nation's history, one of the strongest of our governments was sustained by the narrowest possible majority in the House of Representatives. But that bare majority was enough for the highest possible of all purposes--the security and survival of this nation. There could be no more striking proof--if proof were ever needed--of the power and absolute supremacy of the majority--even a mere majority--in the House of Representatives ... With that paper-thin majority in the House of Representatives, despite its minority position in the Senate, the Curtin Government went on to mobiIise Australia and to steer Australia through the perils of 1942 and 1943. That Government was not only Curtin's vindication; it was a vindication of the authority of the House of Representatives, a vindication never to be forgotten.
That authority, so strong, so unquestioned
in Curtin's day, was overturned by Mr Fraser and his wretched henchmen less
than two years ago. Such an act would have been inconceivable in Curtin's
time. It was not just that the Senate was regarded in 1941 as an irrelevant
anachronism; the authority of the House of Representatives in making and
unmaking governments was rightly considered supreme. No one doubted its
authority for a moment, least of all the Governor-General. In 1945 Prince
Henry could become Governor General without qualms of any kind, because
the basis of constitutional monarchy and responsible government was thought
to be firm and unchallengable in Australia. The Queen would not allow Prince
Charles, and he would not want, to be Governor-General today. On the afternoon
of 11 November 1975, when the House of Representatives declared its want
of confidence in the Fraser Government, the Governor-General took no notice
of it. The Parliament was defied. Until our constitutional practice reasserts
the supremacy of the elected House of Representatives in forming the government
of Australia, democracy in this country will remain imperilled and unstable.
The violation of constitutional rules and conventions is not the only legacy
of the Fraser Government. In this lecture I have sought to show that in
a number of crucial areas, all of them central to our system of government
and way of life, principles that have served Australia for more than 30
years have been scrapped or are being scrapped.
Full employment, the cornerstone of individual prosperity and personal security
in all industrial nations, has been abandoned as a goal by the Fraser Government.
Uniform taxation, a key instrument of national unity and national equity,
is being replaced by a hodge-podge of new taxes, levies and charges by State
and local government.
The long-standing and inevitable movement towards Federal responsibility
for community services and social welfare has been put into reverse.
Specific initiatives by the Curtin Government for Federal involvement in
education and housing have been abandoned.
The natural aspirations of Australians for true democracy and independence
have been thwarted.
I put it to you in all earnestness that the Fraser Government's policies
are weakening our national unity and fostering new schisms in the nation's
life which will make the great problems before us infinitely more difficult
to surmount. There is nothing new about a conservative government promoting
class divisions; the Fraser Government has been adept at doing so. What
is novel and pernicious in this government is its promotion of regional
conflicts as well, the encouragement of fresh State rivalries, with the
inevitable fragmentation of our national will. We have seen in the Fraser
Government a retreat from the principles of nationhood itself--the beginning
of a slippery slope that will lead us back to pre-federation days, that
will make us once again a congeries of competing States, conflicting interests
and squabbling factions. I firmly believe that the Australian people will
reject this course. I fully expect that after the next elections--whenever
they are held--Australia will return to a path of unity and progress--a
path first chartered by the greatest of my predecessors, John Curtin, 36
years ago.
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