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Commonwealth Parliamentary Debate - House of Representatives - 21 June 1912
Published by Victor Perton as part of Australian
Liberalism: The Continuing Vision
Liberalism (A
Resource of Liberal Materials from around the world including definitions of Liberalism)
Australian Liberalism
Let there be no mistake here. This is the real line of division between us. We put forward as a national policy the development of the industries of Australia,but we insist that those industries and those resources are to be developed by private enterprise, under the control of laws which secure equity and justice in the matter of wages, hours, and conditions of employment. Our fundamental difference is not in respect of nationalization of all those industries instead of their preservation in the hands of our citizens and workers, and their progress by the motive power of independent initiative. We rely upon our citizens working for their own families and their own future to develop our resources and perfect our industries in a way that could never be attained by a regimented body of public employees marshalled under political control and bringing political pressure to bear in their own class interest, no matter how ruinous its effects might be upon Australian interests at home and abroad. Big as Australia is, immense as her resources are, she cannot live alone any more than any other continent can. She looks to her overseas trade, and the development of overseas markets, for her produce is one of the chief aims set out in the programme of the liberal leagues. That is the comprehensive spirit in which this programme was dictated, and in which it is to be read. It covers the whole of Australia and the whole of Australian development. It means the full calling forth of all powers, abilities, qualities, and characters of the people of Australia, not their suppression as citizens, not their dressing always in the same garb and being driven along the same road under the same whip. It means no such subjection. But, given fair conditions and interplay of faculties established under proper authorities, and these within the means of Australia, each of its citizens living his or her own life, and doing the best for himself and herself, as the case maybe, the Australian Parliament will have done all that can be expected from any government.
Commonwealth Parliamentary Debate - House of Representatives - 21 June 1912
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This page produced by Mark Webster at the request
of Victor Perton
Re-edited 25th July 2001