Thank you Tony (Mr Anthony McLellan – ACL Board Member) that is a very kind introduction and I’m sure Her Majesty is very relieved to know that her Opposition is completely loyal.
”….ultimately the good we do is judged by the outcome….”
At the outset I think it’s worth reflecting on the very good advice Jesus gave to politicians in the Sermon on the Mount, it’s very appropriate for an occasion like this: “Be careful not to parade your uprightness in public to attract attention, otherwise you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven.” And Jesus gave even better counsel for the public that politicians see to represent and persuade to their point of view. “Beware of false prophets who come to you disguised as sheep but underneath are ravenous wolves. You will be able to tell them by their fruits.”
And that is a very important text for politicians because ultimately the good we do is judged by the outcome. We demonstrate our values by the deeds we do for you in public life and lives we lead. Not by the virtues we protest that we might have. In other words we should all focus on action and results. And remember too that a lot of great mistakes have been made with the best of intentions. Ultimately we get paid, in every respect, on results.
But what drives us into public life? My friends it is passion, it is passion for public service. And I’ll dwell if I may for a moment on another passage which I’m sure you’re very familiar with from Psalm 34, “seek peace and pursue it.” It’s one of King David’s sons, “seek peace and pursue it.”
The English translation does not do it justice. The Psalms are of course poetry and there was a famous definition of poetry which I always liked which is ‘that which is lost in translation.’ And very often, and there are some translations of that verse that are particularly inadequate. Because the Hebrew word for peace – shalom – is much more than what in English we refer to as peace which is often just referred to as an absence of conflict, an absence of war. Is Australia at peace? Yes because we’re not at war, we’re not being invaded, although we obviously do have our soldiers in action in different places around the world. Shalom means wellbeing, peace in the sense of contentment. It is almost welfare of the whole community, is really what that word means in that verse.
But the most significant word in that one line of the Psalm is pursue it. “Seek peace and pursue it.” What does pursue mean? Well pursue, the Hebrew word that is translated there is radaf. And that means the pursuit of the hunter. The relentless, unyielding, driving hunter. Chasing his or her quarry over hill, down dale, through the thickets, battling through the undergrowth, climbing over the rocks. Determined to get their quarry.
And so what the Psalmist is telling us here is that we should not simply be looking out for the social welfare, wellbeing, the commonweal, to use an old fashioned term that’s reflected in the name of our country. Not simply looking out for it, not simply being alert to it, but striving with all of our heart to do it. And in fact the Good News Bible in its translation perhaps comes a little bit closer to it, although I think still inadequately because as I said, poetry is what’s lost in translation, when it talks about striving for peace with all your heart. That perhaps is a little bit closer than the conventional translation.
So that is what all of us in public life must seek to do. To look out for the public good, to seek to serve the people not in an administrative way, not in a bureaucratic way, not in a procedural way. But to reach out, to identify, with energy, with passion, with commitment, with zeal, the wrongs that need righting and go forth and address them. And it’s that energy, that passion for public service that it should inform all of our work, all of our work in politics and in public life.
And that is why when school children come to see parliament, and of course I think most school children in Australia do make a visit to Parliament House, when MPs like myself or Scott Morrison here, the Member for Cook, my friend and colleague, when we go and address the groups from the schools in our area many of us make two points. We say one, this place belongs to you, as it does, it’s the people’s parliament. And secondly we remind them that everything that we do in that place is designed to make Australia a better place for them to grow up in. in other words everything we do is focused on their future and on their wellbeing, on their shalom in the years ahead.
Now we have had a remarkable week this week in politics. The election of Barack Obama is one of those extraordinary events. It’s as though for a moment in time it felt as though the most anguished prayer for reconciliation had been fulfilled. Nobody can ever forget the speech of martin Luther King, the ‘I have a dream’ speech. A prayer, it was a prayer as much as it was a speech. And to think that Martin Luther King’s ambitions not even 50 years ago seemed so far away in that time. You know when he said he looked forward to the day that his children, his little children, would be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. When he said that I wonder did Dr King dream that one of his children or a young man about that age could actually be president? I don’t know, let’s hope he did, let’s hope he did.
But if that was a prayer, and it was a prayer, and it’s a prayer that has been made again and again, then the election of Senator Obama has fulfilled it, fulfilled it in super abundance. It is a remarkable event. Now of course Senator Obama is a human like all of us. He is a charismatic speaker, a remarkable man undoubtedly, with great God given gifts of eloquence, of leadership, of charisma. And no one in public life will fulfil every expectation and boy the expectations and hopes that are pinned on him are remarkable.
“..at the core of our philosophy is a commitment to freedom..”
But it is nonetheless, it was a remarkable day and it reminds us my friends of the importance of freedom and really that is what I want to talk to you about. The importance of freedom, because it’s not for me to give a partisan speech and I don’t intend to. But obviously I am the Leader of the Opposition, I’m the leader of the Liberal Party, and we have a distinct political philosophy. Our policies on particular issues will change from time to time, not least because policies with the best of intentions will turn out to be unsuccessful and you have to start again. That’s life.
But at the core of our philosophy is a commitment to freedom. Ultimately we believe that government’s role is to enable people to do their best. To enable them to exercise the free choice they have as individuals to make their choices, to lead their lives. And of course that cannot be done other than in a fair society, naturally it can’t possibly be done without that. But enabling people to make their own choices, to be free, is the single biggest difference if you like, between our side of politics and what we might call the more collectivist, the centre left and further left side of politics.
And while Barack Obama is clearly from the centre left, there is no doubt about that, nonetheless his election is a demonstration of the power of a free society. A power of a free society, a great democracy, to step over the hatreds, the antagonisms, the resentments, the bitterness of hundreds of years of discriminations and racial tension, and to make that choice. And it’s a day I think that all of us should savour because whatever the outcome of his presidency might be, and we obviously wish him the best and he should be in our prayers, believe me, the world depends on him doing a great job. But whatever the result may be it has been a remarkable week, a remarkable healing moment in a troubled world.
“There is no question that our nation, any nation is stronger if more people are married..."
Now Samantha was talking earlier about families and marriage and she did well to do that. As many of you know, as Tony particularly knows because we were on the MRC together, marriage and families and demographic issues are a great passion of mine. There is no question that our nation, any nation is stronger if more people are married – and when I say married I mean formally married. And that doesn’t mean previously married, that means formally as in legally married – if they’re legally married and if more children are brought up by a father and a mother.
An interesting piece of research I read years ago and incorporated in a lecture I gave at Sydney university a long time ago, was that when you normalised, or standardised I suppose, samples of white American youth and black American youth, young males I’m talking about, for whether they had been brought up in households with a father, when you standardised that the rates of juvenile delinquency were very similar. And this is a point that many people have observed both in the United States in particular but also in our country.
“..the reality is that society has a vested interest in strong families and strong marriages….”
One of the greatest causes of childhood delinquency, juvenile delinquency, social disadvantage, is the breakdown of the family. Now we cannot make every marriage stay together, no one can do that. But what we can do and Samantha is right, is to promote and encourage marriage. And recognise that marriage is a social good and that each of us has a vested interest in each other’s marriage. This is a very important point. In our respect for other people’s privacy we say well that’s their concern and it’s you concern. People sort out their own lives and of course they must. But the reality is that society has a vested interest in strong families and strong marriages.
Just like children are a social good, all of us have a vested interest in each other’s children and my friends none more so than the childless. Think about that, think about that. When I’m old and crotchety, I might be crotchety now, but when I’m old and I’m in need of government support and pensions and pharmaceutical benefits and all those things, it will not just be my children that will be paying taxes to support me, it will be your children too. And who knows, your children may be paying more taxes than my children.
“….we (the Coalition) have…. a passionate commitment for the family….”
So the fact is whether you look at it from a social, cultural, a spiritual point of view, or if you look at it from a hard headed economic point of view, you need to have strong families and we need to recognise that we all have a vested interest in other people’s families. So that is one of the reasons why we have on our side of politics, and I don’t suggest the other side doesn’t, just speaking for ourselves. We have a passionate commitment for the family, for the promotion of the family, for the protection of children and therefore the protection of children within the family. And that is something that we will pursue, that is part of the peace, part of that commonweal we will pursue with passion. With that passion of the hunter pursuing his quarry across the hills.
Now one issue that I know many of you will be anxious about, as everyone is anxious about, is the global financial crisis. And it is one that has taxed policy makers everywhere around the world and you might well ask why should we talk about this to a Christian gathering like this? Am I not delving into the affairs of mammon? The reality is that in fact the Gospels celebrate many things and I won’t trespass any more on the province of the clergy, but the Gospels celebrate many things, not least the importance of conviviality, the human experience of sharing a meal which of course we remember in our Eucharist. But also the Gospels…Jesus is full of very sensible advice on a whole range of matters including some business matters.
One of the things that we have seen with the sub-prime crisis is people forgetting very basic principles. Living within your means, not advancing large sums of money to people who cannot afford to repay it. Just remember this, what was the origin of this sub-prime crisis? Enormous amounts of money were advanced as housing loans in circumstances where people could not realistically afford to repay them unless a housing bubble continued to grow. In effect it was speculation. Now of course if the bubble keeps on growing everyone’s happy because asset inflation gets you out of it. But it was that failure to focus on some pretty old fashioned values that were at the core of the sub-prime crisis.
And I think as we reflect, as the world reflects on the consequences of this global financial crisis we will come back to, again, to some very old fashioned values, that when I say old fashioned they’re really eternal values, perennial values of thrift, of saving, of personal responsibility. And that applies to individuals and of course it applies to companies and it applies to countries and nations. And that is why focused on those values as we are, that is why in the years that we were in government we took advantage of the strong economic growth that we had and paid off Australia’s debt, paid off our federal Government’s debt.
So as we go into these difficult times, as Mr Rudd as Prime Minister leads Australia in these difficult times he has the great advantage of having no net debt at the federal level, of having plenty of money in the bank. He has stored away, his predecessors have stored away the fruits of previous harvest and he is now better situated than almost any other leader of a developed country, better situated to deal with these challenges.
But having said that, the correct decisions have to be taken. And for our part we would like to work in a more bipartisan way with the Government and we have offered to do that. They have declined that offer and that’s their prerogative. Nonetheless the offer remains open so in the meantime we will continue to make constructive and helpful, positive suggestions wherever we can.
“Jesus cut through complexity……”
Let me conclude before we move to the questions, I’m sure you’ve got some good questions and comments for me to tax me here this Saturday morning in this beautiful hall. Let me just conclude with a reflection on the mystery of our faith. We must remember always that Jesus cut through complexity. He cut through complexity to the central mystery.
The Lord’s Prayer which for reasons best known to himself the Speaker suggested shouldn’t be part of our proceedings in parliament. And as you know we quickly opposed that as indeed did the Prime Minister. I’m very fond of the Speaker but I can only say as we often do of our friends, I have no idea what he was thinking when he said that.
The Lord’s Prayer, remember when Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer he gave us a simple prayer as an alternative to long and complex liturgies. Don’t pray with all of these long words and formulas and so forth, just cut through, cut through to the simplicity. It’s a very simple message. A simple message but not a simplistic one. As complex and mysterious as it is simple.
Because when you, and I’m taking a metaphor from Lawrence Durrell for those that are familiar with his books about Alexandria. When you climb your way down the anchor chain, imagine you’re climbing down an anchor chain link by link, into the darkness of the water, getting closer to the mystery at the heart of your faith. What do we find there? We find love. That is what we find. As baffling, as incomprehensible, as overwhelming, as love. That is what we find. That’s what Jesus left us. He left us peace, but it was the peace of love.
“without love our lives are empty…”
Now we have all been the beneficiaries of love in our lives and without love our lives are empty and without love the nation’s life is empty. Everything we do in public service is for the love of this country and the people who dwell in it, and the land that we dwell on and dwell in. And I have been so lucky in my life to have had so much love. I could not tell you of all the love I have had. But I just want to tell you one story.
Tony mentioned that when I was about nine my dear mother who I adored left us and went to live overseas. And it broke my father’s heart and it broke my heart too, as you would expect. My father loved me so much that he never said a bad word about my mother. He was filled with resentment and anger, as you would be, but he loved that little man, his son – me, so much and was so determined that I would love my mother and never think an ill thing about her that he never criticised her, talked her up, created in my mind the most perfect mother. When I was a young boy I thought I had the best mother in the world even though she was living in another country. He came close to brainwashing me but it was in a good service.
And you know when he died, he was killed in 1982, very young, in an aeroplane accident. And my mother died in 1991, also too young. And when they died – I was an only child – I naturally got their correspondence. And when I read the letters that he had written, on aerograms as you can imagine in those days, no email, telephone calls were way too expensive, how could you do this? Why did you leave? What about Malcolm? All of those reproachful letters, and yet he’d put down that pen, seal up that aerogram and then he’d turn to his little boy and say ‘your mother loves you so much.’ And he said that because of love. He conquered his natural resentment, his anger, with love.
And I’ve had so much other love as well. The love of my darling wife Lucy, my children. But you know when you have been the beneficiary of such transcendent love as I have been, you realise that at the core of our faith and at the core truthfully of many faiths is that central mystery, that essential mystery of love. And that’s the work we seek to do and with your support and with your love we will do it better than ever before.
Thank you very much.
Australian Christian Lobby
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