Manawatu Golf Club, Palmerston North
I’m honoured to be invited here tonight to give the Michael Joseph Savage address.
The first Labor Prime
Minister of New Zealand was a man whose strong human values and
dedication to the welfare of others are as relevant today as they were
when he died in office, at the height of his popularity, in 1940.
In the spirit of the friendly
rivalry that exists between our two nations, I am often reminded that
New Zealand has given Australia many of its most successful
international figures.
Russell Crowe.
Neil Finn.
Sam Neil.
But tonight, let me turn the tables.
Michael Savage was in fact born in Australia, near Benalla, in the Australian state of Victoria.
It was 1872 and at this time,
as bushranger Ned Kelly was causing chaos around this region, Michael
Savage grew up to dream of a more just world and to take action to
advance this objective.
Savage is revered in this country as the father of the social security system.
In the difficult years before
World War II, he was one of the few national leaders prepared to
criticize Britain’s appeasement of Germany, Japan and Italy.
He is known as a fighter, not just because he was a boxer as a young man.
He fought for people who most needed his help.
Told by doctors he had cancer
and needed immediate surgery, Savage knocked them back, saying he
wanted to focus on his getting his social reform program through the
legislature.
Savage is remembered as a great communicator; a man who rallied those around him to the banner of justice.
A man who sought to unite, not divide.
A straight talker fond of putting decisions in their proper context.
For example, during World War
II, as Prime Minister, Savage warned that it could become necessary to
conscript “human flesh and blood’’ to fight World War II.
But he added that people
should understand it would also be necessary to conscript private wealth
to care for the families of servicemen who lost their lives.
This kind of spirit is
reminiscent of one of Australia’s greatest prime ministers, Gough
Whitlam, who in only three years from 1972 to 1975 pursued the same type
of social reforms as Savage.
Both men hungered for justice.
And both kept their eye on the main game.
They did not use the power of high office to serve existing entrenched interests.
They challenged and
redistributed the prevailing power relationships, such that New Zealand
and Australia respectively were never the same.
By the time of their passing –
Savage in 1940 while still in office and Whitlam just last year – both
were seen as national heroes.
Tonight I want to argue that
in 2015, any progressive party that wants to win elections needs to
start from the proposition of putting people first by demonstrating how
their lives will be improved by government policy decisions.
They must do something more.
They must also argue the case
for long term reform that will make a positive difference to society
beyond the short term interests of any individual member.
THE WORLD IS SHIFTING
In sport and in politics, focus is important.
Just as the All Blacks won
the World Cup by putting aside the hype and focusing on what mattered
most, politicians must, like Savage and Whitlam did, keep their eyes on
the main game.
Concepts like fairness, sustainability, the creation of opportunity and shared prosperity must be firmly in our sights.
In 2015 there is no doubt that such concepts are gathering favour globally.
Across the world right-wing governments are on the nose.
People are looking to the progressive left for a way forward.
The shift has also found its
way to Australia, where the conservatives have dumped the aggressive and
divisive conservatism of Tony Abbott in favour of Malcolm Turnbull.
Mr Turnbull is now busy
appropriating Labor Party rhetoric across many areas and is presenting
himself as the conservative you have when you don’t really want a
conservative.
Of course, the truth is that Malcolm Turnbull has not changed the substance of the conservative Government.
But, in recognition of the
public mood, he is attempting to engage people by talking about
important policy areas including investing in cities and public
transport – both banned by his predecessor.
The problem is that the Australian Government’s core policies have not changed under Mr Turnbull.
They still want to destroy trade unions.
They want to increase the regressive goods and services tax.
They still propose huge cuts to health and education.
THE LIGHT ON THE HILL
Former Australian Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley once described the labour movement as “bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness to the mass of the people.’’
Chifley was articulating the
idea that the labour movement encapsulates a spirit of selflessness –
the idea that we are all here on this earth to do something more than
feather our own nests.
While we seek personal
success, most of us can’t tolerate seeing others being prevented from
being their best because of their gender, colour or the circumstances of
their birth.
This spirit points us toward a better place for all, while all the conservatives offer is a continuation of the status quo.
Ours is a compelling vision.
It speaks loudly to people
who want their children to grow up in better circumstances than they
did, an aspiration held by all parents.
The current shift toward progressive politics is confirmation that the real human mission in the 21st century is not to limit fairness, but to extend it.
Tonight, I want to offer five
areas that should be core business for progressive parties in 2015 as
we seek to respond to the public shift in sentiment.
- Future job creation and the economy.
- Developing our cities and regions.
- Building communities.
- Advancing equity.
- Environmental sustainability.
1. FUTURE JOB CREATION AND THE ECONOMY
No government can survive if it cannot maintain a strong economy.
That’s part of the job description whatever your political affiliation.
But the difference between
the left and right of mainstream politics when it comes to the economy
is the reason we want a strong economy.
For the conservatives, a strong economy is an end in itself because it means more profits for business.
But Labor wants a strong economy because it generates jobs and government revenues that allow us to deliver ongoing reform.
It’s critical that we explain this difference to voters because it goes to our motives – what we actually stand for.
From this side of the Tasman
you would be aware that Australian economic growth has declined in
recent years due to the decline of the mining boom.
In my country, the competing political visions about how to deal with economic policy sum up the policy divide.
So far, Malcolm Turnbull has articulated two possible solutions.
The first is to increase the
goods and services tax, which as New Zealanders know only too well, will
hit pensioners and low-income earners harder than the wealthy.
The second, which is even more worrying, is to attack the wages and conditions of average workers to boost corporate profits.
Mr Turnbull, for example, wants to abolish Sunday penalty rates for workers in hospitality and tourism.
Existing arrangements mean many low-income workers rely on weekend penalty rates for a living wage.
There is ample scope in
existing enterprise bargaining arrangements for workers and their
employers to trade off penalty rates for higher base rates.
But Mr Turnbull is not looking for trade-offs.
He just wants lower wages.
In the same way, he proposes
to destroy the Australian domestic shipping industry by exposing it to
unfair competition by foreign-flagged cargo vessels paying third world
wages.
On my last visit to New Zealand in 2011 I saw
firsthand the extraordinary damage the Liberian flagged MV Rena caused
off your pristine north coastline.
The jailing of the captain and navigation officer provides little comfort, given the damage.
Mr Turnbull has decided that
because foreign vessels carry freight more cheaply than Australian
vessels, he should run local operators out of business or force them to
sack their Australian crews and replace them with cheaper foreign
labour.
What a betrayal of the national interest.
Labor takes a different approach.
We seek to balance the
legitimate hope of business that governments can reduce costs with the
equally legitimate aspirations of average people to access employment
with fair pay and conditions.
Instead of firing the
starting gun on a race to the bottom on wages and conditions, we want to
develop new, well-paid jobs in new industries, particularly in areas we
can support by investing in innovation and research.
We want to see Australians
working in areas like high value manufacturing, infrastructure
development, financial and legal services, food and agricultural
production, tourism, renewable energy, information technology, urban
design, the arts and creative sector, education and health services.
To support those emerging
sectors, we also need to invest heavily in our education and training
systems to ensure that they produce graduates with the skills to fill
these jobs of the future.
That’s an approach that takes
people’s legitimate individual aspirations into account while also
advancing long-term reform to broaden the economy.
And it’s a whole lot smarter and more sustainable than simply cutting people’s wages.
2. DEVELOPING OUR CITIES AND REGIONS
In an increasingly populous
and urbanised world, no political party can be taken seriously if it
sees no role for itself in promoting the productivity, sustainability
and liveability of cities.
Across the world, cities are clogged with traffic congestion and held back by inadequate infrastructure.
In Australia, for example, a
recently produced Infrastructure Australia report found that if we fail
to act, congestion will cost the Australian economy $53 billion a year
by 2031.
Part of the problem is a
shift in work patterns, with the Digital Revolution driving jobs growth
in service industries in central business districts and inner suburbs of
cities.
The result is longer commuting journeys for average workers, who can’t afford homes close to town and live in the outer suburbs.
Governments must confront these trends head on.
We need better roads, public
transport and where appropriate, greater housing densities to make our
cities are as productive as they can be.
For governments in 2015, urban design cannot be ignored.
It requires that national
government work with councils and industry on better design that creates
more vibrant neighborhoods featuring more than just residential
development, but also retail and entertainment opportunities and open
space like parks, bikeways and walking tracks.
We need to accept that people
are not just cogs in some economic machine that we can shift around at
will without any consideration of human needs.
That means that wherever people live – close to town or further out – governments need to think about liveability.
In a carbon-constrained
world, we also need to ensure that new developments optimize the use of
renewable energy, water conservation, and other sustainability measures.
If we want to engage voters, we need to talk about their genuine concerns.
Those genuine concerns start with sustainability and everyday quality of life where they live.
3. BUILDING COMMUNITIES
The challenge for governments is what they can do in practical terms to promote liveability.
Australian demographer Hugh Mackay has done much work in this area, reminding us in his book The Good Life, that humans are sustained by deep social links.
It’s not up to governments to build those links.
That’s up to individuals.
But governments need
to do more to promote and sustain human relationships by nurturing and
maintaining local communities, which are the stages upon which people
live their lives.
We can have all the money in the world, but, as Hugh Mackay has noted:
The thing we need most is each other.
Governments underappreciate the strength of the
positive bonds that exist within functional communities and the desire
among people to see those bonds strengthened.
Communities are more than simply places where houses and shops exist.
Too often, national
governments turn their back on communities, ignoring the potential to
collaborate with people to achieve better outcomes.
That needs to end.
We should support churches, sporting groups, clubs and other community based organisations.
We should invest in community based infrastructure and services, local cultural events and sporting festivals.
People want to work together.
Governments can help them to do so.
4. ADVANCING EQUITY
Equity must always be the guiding light for progressive political parties.
We insist that people have a fair chance to be the best they can be by having fair access to education and training.
We retain and protect a social safety net so economic disadvantage is not allowed to become so great that it holds people back.
We oppose discrimination against people on the basis of their sexuality, gender or colour.
The progressive left has long been the trailblazer in the cause of equity.
Much has been achieved, but there remains unfinished business.
In my country that means joining New Zealand in the 21st century by embracing marriage equality.
In a digital world, genuine equity means freedom of access to new technology.
There’s an interesting ongoing debate in Australia about the development of the National Broadband Network.
The former Labor Government
designed the NBN to provide fibre optic cable carrying high-speed
broadband directly to homes and businesses in Australia.
It was to be universal, the 21st century equivalent of providing water or energy.
But the Coalition has changed
the project so that it will provide fibre to the node – a fancy way of
saying that the fibre will be connected to a box on the street corner.
Consumers will pay to have it
connected and the signal will travel from the street corner box to
their home or business via copper networks.
This means that while Labor
wanted everyone to have broadband access, Mr Turnbull wants to ration
that access according to person’s ability to pay.
First rate access will be restricted to those who can afford it.
Our political opponents
insist that their way will cost less and produce the same result, even
though the truth is their NBN will cost twice as much as they promised
and deliver half the Internet speed.
Compare this approach to that
being taken here in New Zealand, where a similar debate is being
conducted at a far more mature level.
The current government was wise enough to understand the importance of rolling out broadband to the home.
Under current planning, it is hoped that 75 per cent of New Zealanders will be connected via fibre to the premises by 2019.
And New Zealand Labour,
unlike the conservatives when Labor held office in Australia, is not
trying to undermine the project – only to hold the government to account
in its performance in delivering the rollout.
That is as it should be.
As NZ Communications Minister Amy Adams said in Australia during a visit in August 2012:
It made better sense to do
it now rather than have to come back in the future and retrofit
fibre-to-the-node to fibre-to-the-home connection.
I understand there is dissatisfaction in this country at present over Internet services in rural areas.
That’s not surprising.
Equity matters, geographically as well as within individual communities.
Labor also insists on equity measures in taxation.
That means requiring
multi-nationals that fill their coffers off the backs of consumers in
nations like Australia and New Zealand actually paying their taxes in
the places where they generate the profits, rather than playing
accountancy tricks to send their profits offshore.
It also means taking action
to ensure that the wealthiest individuals pay their fair share of tax,
rather than using accountants and lawyers to not only minimise their
exposure, but reduce their tax liability to zero.
5. SUSTAINABILITY
There is no greater intergenerational issue than the environment.
Our world needs to deal with
climate change, not prevaricate and kick the problem down the road for
our children and our grandchildren.
Climate change is not some
kind of international scientific conspiracy dreamed up by extremists who
simply hate the mining and energy sectors.
It’s an economic issue.
The world is moving toward a carbon constrained future.
In Australia, our choice is simple.
We can do nothing and wake up
one day in the future to find the market for coal is shrinking and that
our international competitors have cornered the market on clean-energy
technology.
Or we can embrace change as an economic opportunity.
There are fortunes to be made
in emerging renewable energy sectors but the current government is
turning its back on the reality of change.
Sustainability must be promoted to the very centre of our policy considerations across the board.
CONCLUSION
Let me conclude tonight by noting that progressive political parties all around the world are generally motivated by altruism.
We want people to get a fair go, to have a decent opportunity to be their best and to live rich and fulfilling lives.
Most human beings, whatever their political affiliation, would identify with that concept.
The task for the great labour
movements of Australia and New Zealand is to tap into that egalitarian
spirit and ensure it is reflected in our policies and in the way in
which we explain them to the community.
Around the world, people are turning away from rigid ideology.
They are sick of mindless aggression and needless partisanship.
They want pragmatic government focused on them and on building them a better future.
That provides genuine opportunities for Labor, here and in Australia.
In New Zealand, Michael Savage responded to the challenge all those decades ago.
We must defend the gains that have made our respective nations successful and build on them.
It’s up to us to respond to the challenges of today.
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