Address delivered to mark the 75th Anniversary of Prime Minister Ben Chifley’s iconic speech.
(Bathurst, 21 September 2024):Good evening everyone. Friends. True believers. I’m Ed Husic. The third Member of a seat named after your city’s most famous son.
Here, where before there was a city called Bathurst, people lived for over 40,000 years.
To the Wiradjuri, I acknowledge and thank them for their care and custodianship, and extend respect to elders past and present — and to any First Nations people with us.
Thinking about what I would say to you this evening, a realisation dawned.
I am here because of Ben Chifley.
Not simply because I’m the Member for Chifley.
But because of a moment back in 1949.
Standing on a wooden stage deep in the middle of the bush, a Prime Minister tried to get Australians to embrace the concept of a “nation building project”.
The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme.
A project that pushed to ensure Australians didn’t need to see a future framed by candlelight.
The Snowy’s legacy is evident now, but back then its scale must have seemed unimaginable.
Spanning thousands of kilometres across dense Australian scrub and tough terrain.
All to make electricity in a completely unfamiliar way. Not coal. Water.
By way of massively complex engineering.
Using skills that at the time we were critically short of.
It’s easy to imagine people staring out at the bush that day muttering: “what is the Prime Minister thinking?”
But that was Ben Chifley’s gift.
He could take a fistful of dirt and see in it the potential to reshape a nation.
An unwavering faith that in time Australians would see it too.
A confidence in our nation’s ability to get things done, to do big things.
We didn’t do it alone.
Chifley knew for this project — and an economy undergoing reconstruction — Australia needed workers and plenty of them.
He changed our immigration program, and his own views about immigration, to do the right thing by our country.
Hundreds of thousands of workers were called up from here and over thirty countries, to work on the Snowy during its life-span.
And one of those workers was my dad, brought on as a welder during the late 1960’s.
Dad — and soon after, mum — left the comfort and certainty of a familiar life to travel across the world to a place their families hardly knew existed.
Without Chifley, who knows where I’d be.
But I do know Ben Chifley’s vision in the 1940s is one of the reasons I am here tonight.
So before we go any further, I want to thank your family Jane and Sue.
It’s an immense honour to have this rare chance to deliver some thoughts about your great uncle.
About his work, his character, and how his light on the hill lit a path for my family and millions of others.
Ben Chifley’s decisions created my future.
As I said, I am here because of Ben Chifley.
Thank you.
Every year, since Bob Hawke opened the inaugural dinner, Labor men and women have made their way to Bathurst to remember Ben Chifley.
Son of a blacksmith, became a train driver, ended up Australia’s sixteenth Prime Minister.
Who in four short years managed to reconstruct our economy.
Who changed the way Australians thought about their place in the world, and our connections to each other.
Whose humility masked his ambition and the pride he had in his nation.
A history made and then impressed on me today, opening the Chifley Museum exhibition marking 75 years since the Light on the Hill speech.
Stepping inside the cottage — and into a point in time — a home Ben Chifley shared with Liz.
Every year since Chifley first uttered his “light on the hill” speech, the strength and motivation of those words propelled our Labor movement.
It reminds us never to lose focus on the need to improve the lives of everyday Australians.
Did Ben Chifley know that on that day in 1949 his remarks to a NSW party conference would take on such meaning?
From a few paragraphs, great sentiment endured. Over the years, forming a kind of philosophical sinew.
The words still mean something for Labor folk today, quote:
If the movement can make someone more comfortable, give to some father or mother a greater feeling of security for their children, a feeling that if a depression comes there will be work, that the government is striving its hardest to do its best, then the Labor movement will be completely justified.
Once expressed, a vision established. A standard to guide, a test we’re measured by, a sharp focus maintained on the people who we work hard for.
And by any count, Ben Chifley worked hard and worked himself ragged.
While Prime Minister, he was also Treasurer.
And on top of that, held on to an aldermen’s position with Abercrombie Shire Council, trekking back from Canberra for their regular meetings.
Hard work or not, Chifley knew how thin the line could be.
Between someone born with all the wit and grit in the world, determined to make something of themselves, and the bad luck or circumstance that could hold them back.
Sickness. Work injuries. Unemployment. Unable to feed your family.
This is why for Chifley, social cohesion and economic prosperity were one and the same.
It’s the test he’s set for Labor governments since.
Us of Labor stock bear heavy expectation: we know we’ve accomplished nothing if ordinary Australians feel like nothing’s changed. It creates a responsibility in us all.
If we can give Australian families more security, comfort that the future holds great promise, then we will have spent our time well.
He showed us that we’re enriched by what makes us different, not diminished by it.
Sometimes people mistake our commitment to unity — to solidarity in decision making — for intolerance of difference.
In an age of partisan politics and watching echo chambers in the palms of our hands, people want to see their own values mirrored back to them.
Too often these days people mistake politics as being about the right to speak when what makes us greater is our capacity to listen.
I have friends in this place with vastly different backgrounds and different values, but the same motivation: to make a difference.
I like to argue, I can be difficult, but I like learning from others.
And the moments I value most in our party room and around the cabinet table are hard fought disagreements.
Because the sore point of Australian history reminds us that Labor doesn’t get many chances to make the decisions that a government can.
That means we have to use our time in office and use it well.
Friction creates the chance for change.
Labor governments know our job is to make change, for the good.
Think about every occasion a federal Labor government was elected.
What was the common factor? A moment in time.
Catapulted into responsibility by the impatience of an Australian people who demanded we lift the country out of malaise, the hallmark of conservative governments.
Australians make that call because they want things to be different. They want better.
To fulfill what’s expected of us means challenging the orthodox, common place assumptions about how things are supposed to be.
Building a stronger, modern, future ready economy requires a preparedness to champion those changes
Not all decisions are ever met with universal approval. As Chifley reminds us “no Labor minister or Leader has an easy job”.
Reform requires moving a nation out of what it’s become accustomed to, to the better future it deserves.
And that requires us to be ready not just to explain, but build understanding and agreement about the need for that change.
We can’t be rattled by the naysayers, the critics, the cynics.
Everybody who knew Chifley during his lifetime talked about his kindness and decency, but also his stubbornness about what he knew was right.
“You cannot afford to be in the middle of the road,” Chifley said. “You have to be quite clear about what you believe in, whether popular or unpopular and you have to fight for it.”
It’s easy to celebrate Chifley’s successes today, but his were bitter fights. His friends and supporters had their moments of doubt.
But his fight is our fight. And in many respects we can draw inspiration from his thick skin and iron will.
In the face of relentless negativity, he stared it down — to deliver the greatest reconstruction effort our country has ever seen.
***
I’m here as a Member for Chifley but I’m also here as a Minister for Industry and Science in the Albanese Labor Government.
When Chifley became PM in 1946, he faced a global economy in transition.
Men and women who had served in the war returning to Australia, needing jobs and homes and hope.
That war ended after we saw how the heaviest artillery of the time couldn’t compete against the power of one of the tiniest building blocks of life: the atom.
Science and technology unleashed new dimensions and directions for geopolitics that would transform war — and hang over peace.
Chifley knew that Australia’s economy would need massive expansion and modernisation if it was to sustain his vision of a self-reliant nation.
He understood if Australians felt despair about their own lot in life, they’d have little energy or optimism to spare for his great nation building projects.
So he got to work.
Targeted full employment as a government priority.
A Prime Minister who ushered in car manufacturing, instead of chasing it away.
Breathed new life into the CSIRO.
He stood for universal healthcare.
Established the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, providing free, cheap medicines.
Introduced maternity allowances.
Scholarships for disadvantaged kids to go to university.
The 1940s looked different but the challenges seem unnervingly familiar.
The Albanese government took office as Australia emerged from the shadow of a global pandemic with complicated geopolitics wrapped within.
Our experiences shook us out of assumptions we’d gotten used to.
The land of plenty discovered what it felt like when we couldn’t get the products we needed, when we needed them most.
Around the world, countries are investing time, effort, money into industry because they want to be able to make the things they really need.
On top of this, our generation has to rapidly refashion an energy network that took other generations decades to build.
Doing so against a backdrop of a global climate markedly different to any previously experienced.
Like Chifley’s government, today’s Albanese government looks to rebuild and strengthen a post pandemic economy.
Establishing the National Reconstruction Fund, the biggest investment in manufacturing capabilities in living memory.
Modernising our grid, rewiring the nation, backing new ways of making energy.
Making investments in essential science that our country will need to shape future industries, like quantum computing and clean energy.
But the words of Chifley’s LIght on the Hill were tethered to tough experience.
Chifley knew what it meant to go without, trying to make ends meet in hard times.
2024 might look radically different to 1949 but we know when people are doing it tough.
It’s why our government is determined to do what it can to help Australians by easing cost of living pressures.
Lifting wages out of the rut they’ve been in for ten years.
Ensuring workers get paid fairly for their work, same pay for the same job.
Cutting their taxes. Helping them earn more and keep more of what they earn.
Training our youngest workers without burdening them with the costs of going to TAFE.
Increasing bulk-billing, cutting the cost of medicines for the first time in 75 years.
Marshaling the government investment needed to build more homes across our nation.
Delivering cheaper childcare.
Making calls no other governments had the guts to do — such as capping energy prices to help households and manufacturers alike.
Making the biggest changes in decades to deliver quality aged care.
Over the past two and a bit years we’ve made a big start.
There’s always more to do.
We’ve shown we will do what we have to because we want a country where cost of living is no longer the top concern in our communities.
Where people can have the peace of mind, knowing they can pay the bills, look after their families.
Ben Chifley wanted everyday Australians to feel a greater sense of comfort and security — that’s a task cutting across the ages, a job we take seriously.
While Labor’s guided by the founding notion to change the country for the better, our political opponents find it impossible to move with the times.
Sometimes they even flirt with the idea they’d look good in sheep’s clothing.
With a straight face, claim they’re the party for workers; even as they vote against moves to deliver better wages, more secure work.
They’ll say with no shame they’re the best friend of manufacturing: or at the very least the manufacturers they haven’t chased out of the country.
As someone raised in Western Sydney, I reckon everyday workers see straight through the deception.
The modern form of sheep’s clothing for the Liberals and Nationals is the high-viz vest. But it’s still the same wolf beneath.
Today’s Liberals and Nationals say anything to get a vote from workers, but do absolutely nothing to deserve it.
They cut, don’t grow.
Tear down, never build.
Talk tough to hide low ambition.
No vision. No future.
A DNA that always sows division.
Trading on fears of the future, to rob people of a better one.
John Howard, Tony Abbott, Peter Dutton.
Faces have changed, the game’s the same.
Will say they represent Australian values, while taking their cues from the playbooks of extreme right parties from places far from here.
How far they’ve moved from the views of ordinary Australians, and even from their own party legacy.
When Chifley launched the Snowy Mountains scheme, Menzies supported it.
In Government, the Liberal party continued it.
Not these days.
When the modern Liberal party couldn’t stop another nation building project — delivering a modern broadband system for the nation — they vandalised it to differentiate.
Robbing the nation of a fibre bound NBN, just to deliver last century’s copper.
History repeats.
Unable to embrace a renewable future, they’ve gone nuclear.
We’re pushing for cheaper power delivered by renewables today, creating manufacturing and job opportunities here.
The Liberal and Nationals want nuclear power — eye wateringly more expensive — delivered decades late, siphoning billions of taxpayer dollars to the only people who can build the plants: offshore firms.
We have a light on a hill, they’ve got the glow of an isotope.
Nuclear isn’t an idea, it’s a fantasy.
Government used to be a genuine contest of ideas about the nation’s future.
But today, our opponents operate at the extremes.
The Liberals on the far right.
The Greens at the far left.
No interest in governing for anybody in between.
Only Labor governs for everyone.
Labor governments are at their best when they respect that the work of our movement is two-fold:
Providing working people with as much security as we can, so they can weather the challenges of today,.
While crafting an agenda for future growth, generating jobs, opportunities, well-being for those that follow.
This is why when times are hard people turn to Labor.
Because we offer both the promise of a brighter future, and protection from the storm.
****
Friends, I finish where we began.
Seventy five years ago, in that speech to NSW Party conference, Chifley recalled sitting in Labor meetings in the country, seeing the faces of those who’d worked in the Labour movement, one for over fifty years, and said:
“I have no doubt that many of you have been doing the same, not hoping for any advantage from the movement, not hoping for any personal gain, but because you believe in a movement that has been built up to bring better conditions to the people.”
Just as it did in 1949, the success of our Party at the next election, “depends entirely, as it always has done, on the people who work.”
They are who we work for. Nobody else does. And our work isn’t done.
There’s more to accomplish.
Importantly, with you all, there is much more we can and should accomplish together. Thank you.
