Phonograph records of 1929 election speeches

Earle Page:

There is one issue, and one issue only, in this election. The federal arbitration system, in its present form, is on trial before the full jury of the electors of Australia. Is this system a help or a hindrance to commerce, industry and production, does it widen the breach between employer and employee, does it increase the cost of production, does it make for industrial peace, continuous employment and better wages, or does it cause industrial turmoil, unemployment, and loss of wages?  

The outstanding fact in the industrial situation today is that the federal arbitration system has failed. That failure is definitely due to three factors. Firstly, the defiance of arbitration awards by labour organisations, secondly the lack of constitutional power of the Commonwealth to utilise every method of securing industrial agreement, and thirdly the existence of two arbitration authorities – Commonwealth and state, acting independently, often at variance, and played off one against the other by both the employer and the employee. On this question, the Country Party definitely takes its stand behind the government. The government has attempted by referendum of the people to remove the constitutional limitations and secure to the Commonwealth complete power in industrial matters so that duplication might be abolished. The people have, on four separate occasions, rejected this solution. In these circumstances, the only manner in which duplication of control in industrial matters can be abolished is by leaving the whole field to the states, except in maritime transport, in which the Commonwealth has complete power. This solution is in conformity with the spirit of the constitution and agrees with the considered opinion of the majority of the Royal Commission appointed to report on the working of the Constitution, which says quite definitely that the Commonwealth should escape this field.

The states preceded the Commonwealth in schemes of industrial regulation. The great majority of the workers of the Commonwealth work under state awards. In New South Wales, there are 88 federal and 455 state awards. There are only twelve federal awards operating over the whole of Australia. And in many cases, the conditions of wages and hours under state awards are more generous than under federal awards. There are between 500,000 and 600,000 unionists under state awards and only 420,000 belonging to unions who are under federal award, and of these, many thousands work in industries operating under state awards.  

The change is opposed by Labor extremists because, in the division of authority, they see opportunities of creating unrest. Last year the industrial labour movement advised all their members to boycott the federal arbitration court. Now, buoyed by political considerations, they have changed their front and are fighting for its retention. This year, practically all the federal unions enjoying the benefit of federal awards have been forced by the terrorisation of extremists to levy on their members to help destroy the federal arbitration court award in the timber industry. The Labor leaders themselves admit the court is not functioning satisfactorily , and suggest drastic action to put the system on a new basis because of the limits of federal power. In the coal industry, the operation of a labour scheme, because of the absence of power to enforce decisions, has resulted in the exploitation of the general public and ultimately the present impasse in the coal industry.  

The issue is between the government's policy of abolition of duplication, and Labor's policy of leaving things as they are, with all the duplication and the difficulty, with the system obviously breaking down. Support for the government's proposal will clarify the whole position and prove a most important step towards industrial peace. Industrial peace is absolutely essential to the maintenance of standard of living and continuity of employment on which good wages depend. The real protector of good wages is continuous employment. The greatest menace to good wages is unemployment. The existence of duplication contributes to industrial turmoil and must ultimately lower wages. Consequently, I ask you to support the candidature of those who support the government in its plan to carry out a businesslike and progressive policy. 

Edward 'Ted' Theodore:

The federal Labor Party, of which I have the honour to be deputy leader, is appealing to the people of Australia in what is probably the most momentous election campaign in the history of the Commonwealth. For 30 years, Australia has been contributing important pages in the book of industrial history, and one of the proudest pages in the book deals with the building up of the federal system of conciliation and arbitration. It has been a giant task, the building up of this system of industrial regulation, which we know so well in Australia, and some very great men have contributed to the task. The system has not been perfected, but to understand the progress that has been made, it is only necessary to cast one's mind back to the days when so called 'freedom of contract' held the field. Those were the days when there was no legal control of industrial relations and it was a case of the survival of the fittest. Those were days of great poverty, hardship, turmoil and frequently bloodshed. As a change from those conditions, the system of federal conciliation and arbitration has brought stability.  

Despite what opponents of arbitration say to the contrary, it is an undeniable fact that in the overwhelming majority of industries coming within the scope of the arbitration court, there has been peace for years. A standard basic wage and standard hours of work have been established, and uniformity of conditions has been brought about for a great many industries which are nationwide in their scope. The federal government, of which Mr Bruce is the head, now proposes with one fell swoop to abolish the whole of this system. Because the system is not perfect, because it still needs mending, they would end it, and cast hundreds of thousands of workers into the open economic ring where for years they fought so many unequal fights.

I am compelled to say that Mr Bruce himself is responsible for many of the difficulties confronting us. He has not had the benefit of personal contact with the problems of industry, he has never been very close to the lives of the workers. That is not his fault, but his lack of knowledge has had very serious results, and his name will go down as that of the greatest disturber of industrial peace in the history of the Commonwealth. His federal meddling with our system of conciliation and arbitration has created continual bitterness and rancour; with his deportation laws, the industrial provisions of his Crimes Act, his penal clauses tacked onto the Arbitration Act, and now his astounding proposal to scrap the whole present system, he has been responsible in the past few years for endless unrest and confusion. In two previous elections, those of 1925 and 1928, Mr Bruce exploited the problem of industrial unrest for political purposes and fanned the flames of industrial strife in order that this might help him return to office. He is now attempting to do so for the third and, I feel confident, the last time. Incidentally, his tactics have had a very damaging effect on the good name of Australia overseas. By repeating a catchcry of industrial turmoil at elections and suggesting that he is the only person able to restore peace, Mr Bruce has given the impression in other countries that Australia is a land of perpetual strikes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our record compares more than favourably to that of other countries.  

In proposing, without any mandate, to overthrow a system of industrial regulation that has grown out of the misery and oppression of the workers, and which humanitarian statesmen have built up act by act over many years until it is the system we know today, Mr Bruce attempted to betray the people. He is now seeking a mandate, but he would already have accomplished this purpose if some of the ablest of his own followers had not stepped in and forced him to consult the people.  

And what, one may ask, is Mr Bruce's real purpose? Throughout the length and breadth of Australia there has for months past been a clamour for the lowering of the costs of production. When large employing interests speak of lowering the costs of production, they mean only one thing, a reduction of wages and a lengthening of hours. They declare that the arbitration system prevents this readjustment of our industrial system being made. It is primarily for the purpose of saving the basic wage, and greater wages and salaries, that the Labor Party is asking the people to return it to power, for arbitration is the bulwark of the basic wage. It must be maintained, unless we are to return to the industrial turmoil and misery of 30 years ago.  

As a substitute for arbitration, the people are promised some vague and entirely undefined system of round table conferences, which would be dependent on the whims of six different state parliaments. The Labor Party believes in round table conferences, that is in conciliation, but it knows that there must be in the background some legal tribunal to act where conciliation fails. Failing that, there must be a resort to direct action. And when direct action comes into play, industrial disputes are not settled on their merits but on the basis of the economic strength of the contending parties.  

You all know the limerick about the young lady of Riga, who went for a ride on a tiger. They came back from the ride with the lady inside and a smile on the face of the tiger. That is what happens to poorly organised workers in a fight with powerful employing interests. To safeguard their wages and conditions, therefore, the workers should return the Labor Party to power.

Billy Hughes:

Ladies and gentlemen

The issues before the people are quite clear. They are issues which intimately affect their daily lives. They go to the roots of our industrial, social and political system. They are people's questions, and the people will decide them. But if the government had had its way, the people would never have had a chance to do so. But my amendment compels those who try to steal and march upon the people to face their masters.  

There are many issues before the people, but the outstanding issue of this election is arbitration. For 25 years the federal arbitration system has been an integral part of our industrial lives. Every government, irrespective of party, has championed it, and sought to make them more effective. Mr Bruce has decreed that it must go. His action is without parallel in our history. For a quarter of a century we have pressed forward, and he is the first to sound the bugle for a shameful retreat from a vital, strategic point in our national life. 769,000 unionists are registered in the federal court, and 407,000 are working peacefully under its award. They are to be driven out of that industrial temple in which they have found shelter for a generation, but what is to become of them? For a quarter of a century we have sought to settle industrial disputes by law instead of by direct action. For six-and-a-half years, Mr Bruce has loudly denounced direct action and championed the rule of law. Now he wipes out, at one stroke, every federal industrial law. In 1925, he appealed to the electors on the enforcement of federal law. Last November, he did so again. Addressing the Rotary conference only last February, he said it would be a tragedy to abolish federal arbitration, that it was unthinkable that any government should do this, that he would never be a party to it. Today, he says that federal control must be abolished without a day's delay. And for all this, he says he has the mandate of the people. No more audacious claim was ever made by a public man. He has no mandate, and he knows he has none. For he is condemned out of his own mouth. He says unless federal arbitration is destroyed, costs of production cannot come down. We all believe in reducing costs of production, but what the people want to know is at whose expense the reduction is to be made. When they look at the forces behind Mr Bruce, they are in no doubt on this point. The worker is to pay.  

Every reactionary is behind Mr Bruce. They hail his policy as the beginning of the end of all arbitration. The basic wage all over Australia rests upon the foundation of the federal award. Destroy federal authority, and down come wages. What is to follow? Mr Bruce says they can go to the state courts, but in 1925 Mr Bruce said that the states could not deal with the industrial question, that it could only be dealt with on a national basis, not only because of its fundamental importance, but also because of varying hours in different states might destroy the equality of state competition. Now he hands over all power to the states, which he says cannot deal with the petition.  

But that is not the worst. For Mr Bavin tells us that if Mr Bruce is successful, the state court of New South Wales must go too. We don't know what he intends to put in its place, but a straw shows how the stream runs. Mr Bavin says the rural workers award is to go. That reveals his purpose, only fools cannot see it. If the people vote for Mr Bruce and his followers, they will play into the hands of reactionaries, who want reduced wages and longer hours. Let them fight them hip and thigh, let them turn a deaf ear to their honeyed words and golden promises, for the plain truth of the matter is this: that in the face of Mr Bruce's present policy, and the pledges given to the electors at the last two elections, he stands divoted before the people as a man of whose word none can rely on. He and his followers have contemptuously trampled on the platform of the National Party and broken the pledges they gave to the people.  

The basic principle of representative government is that the men elected to represent the people shall be bound by the pledges they have given to the people is destroyed, for when men cease to do this, representative government becomes a hollow sound. What does it matter what Mr Bruce and his followers say, for they are men to whom no pledge is sacred.