LEAVE NOBODY BEHIND HOLD NOBODY BACK - THE LIGHT ON THE HILL ADDRESS BATHURST, 28 SEPTEMBER 2019 JIM CHALMERS MP
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
LEAVE NOBODY BEHIND HOLD NOBODY BACK THE LIGHT ON THE HILL ADDRESS BATHURST, 28 SEPTEMBER 2019 JIM CHALMERS MP
We have a great objective
– the light on the hill –
which we aim to reach by
working for the betterment of
mankind not only here
but anywhere we may
give a helping hand.
Ben Chifley
Sydney, 12 June 1949
2 3BEN CHIFLEY
Joseph Benedict (Ben) Chifley
was Australian Prime Minister
THE LIGHT ON THE HILL ADDRESS from 1945 until 1949.
Chifley is best remembered
The Light on the Hill Address is an annual event held to commemorate for his reorganisation of the
the life and vision of Bathurst’s favourite Labor son and the 16th Prime Australian economy during
Minister of Australia, Ben Chifley. wartime, and from 1945 laying
Since 1985, the Light on the Hill dinner has provided leaders and the foundations for the welfare
senior figures in the labour movement the opportunity to outline their state, full employment, the
vision for Australia’s future; the challenges to tackle and the opportunities Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric
within our grasp. Scheme, and the establishment of
Past speakers include Bob Hawke (1985), Simon Crean (1986), Joan Trans-Australian Airlines and the
Child (1987), John Kerin (1988), Bob Carr (1990), Gough Whitlam Australian National University.
(1991), Paul Keating (1992), Carmen Lawrence (1994), Kim Beazley Born in Bathurst, 22 September
(1996), Laurie Brereton (1999), Barry Jones (2001), Kevin Rudd (2004), 1885, Ben Chifley was brought up
Nicola Roxon (2008), Wayne Swan (2009), Julia Gillard (2010), Linda on a farm by his grandfather. A voracious reader, he joined the New South
Burney (2011), Bill Shorten (2012), Penny Wong (2014), Anthony Wales Railway in 1903 and became an engine driver in 1914.
Albanese (2015), Tanya Plibersek (2017), Patrick Dodson (2018). Chifley held the federal seat of Macquarie (1928-1931 and 1940-
1951) for Labor, a Party he led from the time of John Curtin’s death in
1945 until his own passing in 1951.
Chifley died as leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party in
1951 in Canberra. He remains a cherished figure in Australian history,
an icon of the Australian Labor Party, and an inspirational example to all.
4 5JIM CHALMERS MP
Jim Chalmers MP has been the
Member for Rankin since 2013,
proudly representing the people
and suburbs of southern Brisbane
and Logan City where he was
born, grew up and made a home
with Laura, Leo, Annabel, and
Jack.
Jim was appointed Shadow
Treasurer after the 2019 election.
He first joined the Shadow
Cabinet as Shadow Minister for
Finance from 2016 to 2019. From
2015 to 2016 he was Shadow
Minister for Financial Services
and Superannuation, Shadow Minister for Sport and Shadow Assistant
Minister for Trade, Investment and Productivity.
Jim’s most recent book, Changing Jobs: the Fair Go in the New Machine
Age, is co-authored with Mike Quigley and was published in 2017. His
earlier book about the Global Financial Crisis, Glory Daze, was released
in July 2013.
6 7LEAVE NOBODY BEHIND
HOLD NOBODY BACK
The 2019 Light on the Hill Address
I’m so grateful for this opportunity I want to talk about Labor and
to give the Light on the Hill speech the economy, his two abiding and
in Bathurst tonight, to honour Ben defining interests. I want to talk
Chifley in the local community he about how I think Australia can
loved and served. do better, how we can and should
I’m conscious you’ve bestowed be more ambitious in pursuing
this honour since the mid-1980s sustainable economic growth, and
on Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, how we become a more inclusive
Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd, Julia society which leaves nobody
Gillard, Bill Shorten, Anthony behind and which holds nobody
Albanese, and so many more. And back.
that senior figures in our Party As part of this I want to spend
have established a long tradition of some time on a neglected but very
applying the lessons from Chifley’s relevant aspect of Chifley’s legacy
life to our most substantial – and that’s his role in helping
contemporary challenges as a create the institutions which have
movement and a nation. underpinned the global economic
I’ll do my best to hew closely to order.
that tradition tonight. ***
8 9Chifley’s story begins 134 years It was Chifley who guided achievement at the time. And Labor in government has
and six days ago, a kilometre or cabinet decisions on Australia’s For the next twenty years the been consistent – insisting that the
so from here at that little house participation in negotiations for IMF would exert considerable fair go needs fair markets.
on Havannah Street, a similar what became the International influence over global exchange Chifley set the mould.
distance from the marital home Monetary Fund, the World Bank, rates, capital movements, and But seventy years since the
on Busby Street that I visited this and later the General Agreement on national fiscal and monetary policy. defeat of his Government we
afternoon. Tariffs and Trade – the predecessor Australia was represented on its have to acknowledge that what
It was 1885 and just before of the World Trade Organisation. councils, and often prominently we understand to be the global
the Australian colonies tumbled The outstanding public servants so. economic order is under threat.
from a hundred years of prosperity who took part in those negotiations And the GATT, more than any An order that has been one of
based on immigration, pastoral – Leslie Melville, Nugget Coombs, other international organisation, the foundations of our prosperity
expansion and gold into a slump among others – reported to both was responsible for the emergence is decaying.
deeper and longer than the Great Curtin and Chifley, but generally of the modern global economy. I’m not referring here to the
Depression four decades later. received more day-to-day guidance We should be proud that rise of President Trump – or not
He lived through the from the Treasurer than the Prime Australia made outstanding only to him. I am referring to a
uncertainty and upheaval of two Minister. contributions to this work. global economic order already
economic catastrophes and two When Chifley himself became Proud, too, that the Hawke and under considerable stress before
world wars. PM, and kept Treasury, he Keating Labor Governments later he came to office, and under much
Running through it all was continued to grasp the reins of our led the way in the formation of more stress today.
financial recklessness, unrestrained engagement in the establishment APEC and the creation of annual Bretton Woods was about
competition between great powers of a new world economic order. leaders’ summits. And that Rudd overturning the isolationism and
for markets and technological He sought a global commitment and Swan were so influential in the beggar-thy-neighbour paradigms
advantage, trade and tariff wars, to full employment, to complement G20 group of leading economies, that underpinned the Great
and ugly right wing reactions to his policy at home. He recognised helping to elevate and empower Depression and the ensuing rise of
economic dislocation. that Australia was a relatively its response to the Global Financial nationalism, fascism and war.
Uncertain times, but familiar small economy, one with large Crisis at the same time as their It worked then, but it is
now too. rural industries that depended on domestic policies helped save breaking down now under similar
It was those experiences exports. He knew Australia was Australia from recession. forces unleashed by another great
which drove Chifley’s interest in part of the global economy and *** economic cataclysm – this time the
economic reform in Australia, and wanted to make the most of it. There’s a great tradition of Global Financial Crisis.
in creating a new global economic Against the suspicious Labor’s role in making rules for Things had already started
order. opposition of members of his own the global economy, in creating to be unpicked by neo-liberalism
With John Curtin’s strong cabinet, Chifley eventually won a global consensus favourable from the 1970s on and then with
support, Chifley as Treasurer laid agreement to our membership of to trade, investment and global increasing speed and consequence
the foundations of Australia’s the IMF, the World Bank and the prosperity, based on widely by Thatcher, Reagan, deregulation,
engagement in the world economy GATT. accepted rules applying to all the and financialisation.
after the war. It was a stunning political participants, great and small. But the worst excesses of
10 11neo-liberalism were not quite as economic stability. foresight and vision. They ushered meet its potential.
prevalent in Australia, for all sorts And the acceleration of in something new. This is backed up by the
of reasons. inequality before, during and since Just as Chifley led a nation from numbers. Australia was the second
then has steadily shredded its war to peace and reconstruction, fastest growing economy in the
political legitimacy. from an old economic order to a OECD during the financial crisis,
We in Labor new one. but has now dropped to 20th.
***
have always But the sobering truth is that One of the most penetrating Economic growth is now the
the reactionary right has largely and longstanding chroniclers of slowest it has been in ten years.
taken the big prospered around the world since that post-war period was John Almost 2 million Australians
Kenneth Galbraith. He wrote are looking for work or more
transitions the GFC by attacking globalism
that the essence of leadership work. Wages have barely grown.
with populism, nationalism and
seriously and isolationism – and the progressive was a ‘willingness to confront Household debt is at record highs.
left has struggled. unequivocally the major anxiety of Productivity has gone backwards
we find a place Perhaps the death of big their people in their time’. and living standards have fallen
Big transitions are always since 2013.
for people in ideological movements like neo-
accompanied by big, defining
liberalism is like the death of a star
the larger story – they swell in size and change anxieties.
We need to
colour before they finally disappear Today’s anxieties make for
of change and – and we are living through that a long list, and many things acknowledge
– climate change, terrorism,
progress. phase.
ageing – must feature on it. But that we won’t
We find ourselves at inflection
perhaps the overarching anxiety is
Mostly because we were points in our politics, our economy
declining faith that our politics and
beat populism
governed by Labor for a large and our society.
chunk of that period, and Hawke We in Labor have always taken our economics work for middle of the right
the big transitions seriously and we Australia.
and Keating wanted Australia to
get ahead but not leave people find a place for people in the larger A real loss, not just of faith, but with populism
of hope.
behind. But also partly because story of change and progress.
This has been a feature of our
of left.
John Howard’s obsession was Just as Whitlam took us from a
industrial relations not bank closed to an open society. politics for a long time, but I think
the post-GFC period and the global That’s why people feel like no
deregulation, and because the Hawke and Keating from a
ructions I’ve spoken about made it matter how hard they work they
HIH collapse sent a warning to closed to an open economy.
much more central and urgent. just can’t get ahead. Their incomes
regulators about stability, if not Rudd and Gillard from global
This anxiety has many sources aren’t keeping up with energy,
ethics. recession to recovery.
but three are key: stagnant wages health and childcare costs.
The global recession destroyed In each case it was more than
feeding declining living standards; This is a legacy of six years
neo-liberalism’s claim to providing good management.
fears about the future of work; and of Liberal management of the
generalised prosperity and These were acts of courage,
a sense that our nation is failing to economy, but beyond that, it
12 13is the legacy of a conservative rise of Asia; technological change; with the pace of political change that matter, but with something
government clinging stubbornly climate change and environmental right now, that is an eternity. new and different.
to the wreckage of an economic degradation; demographic pres- Issues will emerge and rise and New and different but consistent
model that has sustained them for sures; and diminished trust and fall in prominence, the economic with our values. Which recognises
so long. social cohesion. and global conditions will evolve, our politics and the economy – and
Nowhere is this more apparent In that scenario, Australia drifts
than in their refusal to contemplate into the future with weak economic
a proper fiscal response to any growth, poor educational outcomes Re-establishing our growth
deeper downturn.
We hear little from them about
and is increasingly vulnerable to
external shocks.
credentials is part of reclaiming
boosting demand or productivity It’s a confronting story. Labor’s rightful place as the party
or how we adapt and adopt It cautions us against wasting
technology in ways that create, not time, neglecting or denying of aspiration as opportunity.
just sacrifice, jobs. the biggest challenges; lacking
Unlike Chifley, unlike Hawke ambition; or getting bogged down and our specific policy priorities at times our Party too – is broken
and Keating, unlike Rudd, Gillard in old binaries and false choices. will be reordered. in important ways and we need to
and Swan, the Government of In doing so we will work out address what’s wrong, as well as
***
Morrison and Frydenberg today which policies from last term we what went wrong.
These lessons apply equally to
is disengaged and complacent in update, which we discard, and ***
Australia and to Australian Labor.
the face of growing threats to our what replaces them. We will take So we need to review our
And the old adage that ‘you win or
prosperity – both domestic and our time to do that. policies. We need to reassure
you learn’ is relevant too.
global. We took an ambitious program anxious Australians we understand
All of us have some thinking
Their failure to plan has three to the last election and we fought the central job-creating role of
and some work to do after our
consequences for Australia: it hard for it. But we weren’t able to business and the importance of
defeat in May. We need to listen
leaves us dangerously exposed; it build a big enough constituency budget responsibility. We need
to the message we were sent, and
unnecessarily limits our options if behind that agenda to win. to remind them of this Liberal
learn from the result.
things get worse; and it jeopardises We mostly lost among middle Government’s real record on the
We won’t win in 2022 by
the future of our economy and our ground voters, not middle income economy.
recontesting and re-prosecuting
country. voters. People in outer suburban But we need to do more than
the 2019 election.
It’s a nice harmony that another communities like mine, around review, reassure and remind. We
Clearly we won’t take an
Chifley creation – the CSIRO – has Australia. need to re-establish, reclaim and
identical set of policies to the next
done the best job quantifying the To win them back, we need renew.
election as we took to the last.
costs of not having a plan for the to acknowledge that we won’t To re-establish our credentials
We need to look ahead.
economy into the future. beat populism of the right with as the Party of economic growth.
By 2022 the search for a new
This year the CSIRO warned populism of the left, especially not By focusing on growth and
politics and a new economics will
us that Australia faces a “Slow with warmed-up nostalgia for the redistribution not growth or
be three years further along, and
Decline” if it fails to address the 1970s, or even for the 1990s for
14 15redistribution. Focusing on the Understanding aspiration can’t then, and under Albanese now. have brought new challenges
future economy. And adopting a come from a focus group. It can We all have our Light on including financial instability, job
genuine mindset of partnership only come from your heart and the Hill. Ours is mobility in all insecurity and income and wealth
which recognises today’s political from your own experiences. its forms: social; economic; inequality.
and economic strategies and In my case it comes from intergenerational. A forward- Unchecked liberalisation can’t
institutions aren’t working for growing up in Logan City, living looking society, an outward-facing
middle Australia. there almost all of my life, raising country, powered by an upward-
*** my kids there, and representing climbing economy. The Light on
Re-establishing our growth the same suburbs south of Brisbane
now.
A nation which leaves nobody
behind and holds nobody back.
the Hill doesn’t
credentials is part of reclaiming
Labor’s rightful place as the party In these neighbourhoods Where we celebrate people doing beckon us
people just want to know that if well and getting ahead. And where
we want more people doing well further right.
We all have our Light on the Hill. and getting ahead.
That’s the whole point of the
Or further left.
Ours is mobility in all its Labor Party and it’s the whole It beckons us
reason I’m here.
forms: social; economic; ***
forward.
intergenerational. A forward- But to re-establish our growth
credentials and to reclaim
address this. Fresh thinking is
required and it should be natural
looking society, an outward- aspiration we need to renew the
territory for the centre-left.
way we go about it.
facing country, powered by an For some decades now our
But instead of fresh thinking,
many progressive parties around
upward-climbing economy. economic policy debates have
been dominated by the drive to
the world have turned to ideas of
the past.
A nation which leaves nobody liberalise the economy.
There’s no shortage of
These reforms did address
behind and holds nobody back. some of the challenges of the
politicians channelling discontent
that liberalisation has failed to
1970s and 1980s when economic
of aspiration as opportunity. they study hard, work hard, go to address inequality, has promoted
performance was hampered by
During the election the idea of bed later than everyone else, get financial bubbles over real
state domination, over-regulation
aspiration was thrown around by up earlier than everyone else, then economic growth, has introduced
and rigidity.
our opponents like confetti from they’ve got a shot. new volatility into our economy
Today’s issues are different.
a shredded focus group report. Every nation talks about this and has reduced the role of the
Three decades of liberalisation
But aspiration in the way Liberals idea but ours is defined by it. state – and they’re right to point
made our economy more
frame it is only ever political cover And only Labor will nourish and all that out.
competitive and flexible, but they
for trickledown economics. advance it. Under Chifley back But their diagnosis is weakened
16 17by proposals which draw from That’s the Liberals’ path but it will We should intervene earlier governments.
a grab-bag of defunct ideas of never be ours. and more effectively to ward off But there’s another lesson
decades past. Instead we recognise the disadvantage, using technology too, particularly pertinent for all
Promising to tear up neo-liberal possibilities for information to update the social democratic of us at this difficult time for our
economics isn’t hard – coming up technology, big data and the state’s egalitarian purpose and movement. It’s something I’ve
with a credible alternative is. internet of things to lift the quality method. been drawing on for inspiration as
‘Back to the future’ politics is and efficiency of public services, Putting these pieces together, I’ve researched this speech and as
no answer to the challenges of the transform transport, education we have part of a new way of I’ve tried to come to terms with our
new economy. and public health – and take a new governing: use technology to recent defeat.
The Light on the Hill doesn’t approach to markets. improve the quality and efficiency Chifley’s career reminds us not
beckon us further right. Or further Rather than debate the merits of public services; use public only of what Labor can accomplish
left. It beckons us forward. of regulation and deregulation, we services to prevent rather than in office, but also of the value of
The answer is neither a should be putting power back in treat social problems; and apply tenacity, patience, fortitude and
capitulation to the Right on further the hands of citizens by ensuring those preventative resources courage when out of office.
liberalisation, nor a turn back to they have rights over their data, progressively to achieve equality When Chifley died in 1951
old left socialism. and control over their digital of opportunity. he had served as the Member for
It’s to focus on seizing the presence. *** Macquarie for almost 14 years,
opportunities of new technologies We should be thinking Harnessing the digital economy as Treasurer for a little over eight
and ensuring broad participation differently about the role of is a challenge big enough to years and as Prime Minister for
in their benefits. government. In education, using compare with the work of Ben four.
Chifley and others in restructuring In that time he fundamentally
reshaped Australia’s domestic
We should intervene earlier the global economy.
To join you here in the year of economy, repositioned us in the
and more effectively to ward off this election, the year of Hawke’s global economy, and embedded us
in its emerging institutions.
death, and to reflect on Chifley’s
disadvantage, using technology legacy, is to be reminded that Labor He established the Australian
National University, the
to update the social democratic has only governed federally for
less than a third of our country’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
state’s egalitarian purpose and history since Federation yet we and Trans-Australia Airways.
He opened Australia up to
have produced what is generally
method. agreed to be four of the best six post-war immigration, initiated
prime ministers. the Snowy Hydro scheme, locked
Not as a way to bring about technology to identify learning in the Federal Government’s
That means Australian history
less secure workplaces and gaps before kids fall behind. responsibility to provide social
is defined by long periods of
harsher industrial relations, or Using new sources of health data services through the 1946
conservative torpor punctuated
hound social security recipients, to identify warning signs before referendum and reorganised the
by bold, activist Labor leaders and
or diminish retirement incomes. people get sick. Commonwealth Bank as Australia’s
18 19central bank. and their families in Bathurst. He only be achieved through economic to puncture and punctuate a
But Chifley learnt as much from watched in hope and frustration prosperity and international period of conservative torpor,
failure as from these successes. as international conference after cooperation. manage big transitions with
After a brief period as Defence international conference failed to He showed us that out of office courage and foresight, address the
Minister in the Scullin Government, agree on a coordinated economic we can use our time well. And he defining anxieties which underpin
Chifley was not only out of office response to the downturn. told us that “we must not only them, and turn aspiration into
but also out of parliament for the And he despaired as the world desire to win but we must deserve opportunity for more people.
next nine years. spiralled into devastating currency to win.” Renewing, refreshing, and
After losing Macquarie in 1931, wars and became seduced by Part of that is recognising recharging the Light on the Hill
he couldn’t win it back in 1934. isolationism, populism and fascism our obligations to people and for new generations by building
Three years later he was denied before humanity was once again communities, understanding how an Australia which leaves nobody
the Labor preselection for the seat plunged into the darkness of badly they need us to learn and behind, which holds nobody back,
then to win, and that’s why we and which is ready for and resilient
carry on. to the challenges that lie ahead.
The workers of middle Australia We do that knowing that after
disappointing defeats in 1980 and
are not like the burden of 2004 we came roaring back in 1983
additional carriages of a train, and 2007 and we’re confident we
can do that again in 2022.
slowing it down; they are the We didn’t ask for another three
years in opposition but we will use
engine itself, a formidable engine them wisely.
which powers prosperity and In Canberra we meet in a
caucus room where Chifley’s
progress. portrait is prominently and
proudly displayed, only a couple of
for the 1937 poll. another World War. metres from where Anthony’s was
He could have given it away, as His membership of the banking recently hung.
many do in similar circumstances royal commission from 1935 to Two leaders who know that the
and as many of us have 1937 taught him how banking and workers of middle Australia are
contemplated at our lowest points, monetary arrangements worked, not like the burden of additional
including in the last few months. and how they didn’t work. carriages of a train, slowing it
But instead it was time well spent. It was Chifley’s time and down; they are the engine itself, a
He saw first-hand the experiences in his years in the formidable engine which powers
devastating effect the Great wilderness which instilled in him prosperity and progress.
Depression had on the workers the belief that enduring peace can Two leaders both called upon
20 21Authorised by Jim Chalmers MP, Australian Labor Party (State of Queensland),
2A Logan Central Plaza, 38-74 Wembley Road, Logan Central QLD 4114.
Printed by Jeffries Printing Services, 5/71A Milperra Rd, Revesby NSW 2212.You can also read
