You are the future

An address to the ACT Young Liberals, August 7, 2021

I wish to speak to you about the future tonight because you are the future.

The purpose of a political party is to win government, but that is not an end in itself,; it is merely an instrument to a greater objective - a free people, a safe and prosperous nation and (in the Aristotelian sense) a happy people.

Australia has had many good Liberal Prime Ministers, but it has also had two great ones: Robert Menzies and John Howard.

I had the privilege of serving in the Parliament during one of the great eras of reform under John Howard. If you visit the Howard Library at Old Parliament House, you will read on the wall at the entrance a statement that Mr. Howard made:

“Politics is not a public relations exercise. It is fundamentally a contest of ideas about what best serves the national interest. It is the ability to evaluate competing visions of the common good that marks a truly great people.”

John Howard’s statement reflects Menzies’ observation, that if you get the policies correct, the politics will follow.

Unlike Kevin Rudd, who began his Maiden Speech saying that “Politics is about power. It is about the power of the State,” I believe politics is about empowering people. As I said in my Maiden Speech, “the essential end of government is not power or glory, but the good life for ordinary men and women. The ordinary man, as I know him, asks for a happy life, not a complaining one; for a full life, not an idle one.”

Which brings me to the great challenges we face if we are to be successful in seeking to represent our fellow Australians.

First, we must engage more of them in the political process. I am told that when Menzies and others formed the Liberal Party in 1944, there were 200,000 members. The population of Australia was just seven million people. Today the membership of the party would be lucky to be more than 50,000 people, while the national population is 25 million.

In other words, there were some 15 times more members in the early years of the Party than there are today. We are not alone, the same trend has afflicted our major opponent, but it is clear that we need to engage more of our fellow Australians.

That means we have to understand their challenges and aspirations. In his ‘Forgotten People’ broadcast - perhaps the most famous of Menzies’s speeches, he observed:

“I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of the organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race. The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.” 

These ‘forgotten people’ were the “salary-earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers and so on,” said Menzies.

They are the people I have represented in my multi-cultural electorate: the Italian butcher, the Greek green grocer, the Chinese pharmacist, the Indian restauranteur, the Aussie tradesman, the immigrants who struggle to ensure their children can get a tertiary education, and so on. They were John Howard’s ‘battlers’.

Our challenge is the reach out to these people, to engage with them, to demonstrate our vision for them, and where possible, to invite them to be an active part of our great political movement.

But we must also recognise that this involves more than criticising the Labor Party, especially when in Opposition.

It is often said that Oppositions do not win elections, governments lose. This is partly true, but the Opposition must be credible and believable to succeed.

As Menzies said: “Opposition must be regarded as a great constructive period in the life of a party, not a period in the wilderness, but a period of preparation for the high responsibilities in which you hope will come.”

Let me recount to you in this regard a sobering statistic.

Since 1990 in the States and Territories, Liberal/National parties have only been in government for an average of 12 years. While this varies from place to place, State and Territory Liberal/National coalitions have only sat on the Treasury benches for a little over one-third on average of the past 30 years. Only in one State, Western Australia, has the Liberal Party been in government for more than 50% of the time since 1990.

As I said, a sobering statistic.

Why is this important? Apart from learning how to live with and manage the Covid pandemic, there are a series of major challenges facing us. These include paying for the significant debt we have incurred in response to Covid; ensuring the rule of law is maintained and regional peace and stability preserved in the face of an increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist Party; and addressing domestic challenges including the substantial blow-out in the costs of the NDIS.

In addition, inflation is rising globally, which if it continues, will impact us as well.

As John Howard said, how we in Australia respond to these challenges will be determined by the ruling philosophy and values of the parties in government.

It is why we must, in Howard’s words, portray and argue for our vision of the common good.

This is more than how we respond to each program or proposal that is mooted. It is about our vision for the way of life for Australians, and in your case, for Territorians.

If the people understand and trust our values, they are more likely to trust specific proposals.

It is our responsibility to argue for the type of Australia, the type of ACT, we envisage for the future.

As our future leaders, this is your great challenge.

Grasp it, and Australia will be a better place.