WE WILL GROW, PROSPER

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr McEwen) said last night all the Governments policies were aimed at building an Australia respected and trusted throughout the world. Mr McEwen, delivering the Country party policy speech at Sheparton, said: The country party, the Government, has one constant and continuing policy objective - to make Australia strong, safe, prosperous; to build a modern Australia, with equal opportunity for all: where the aged, and the infirm, are looked after; where the young are well educated, properly trained, to play their part in making the greater Australia of the future; where every man, woman and child - native-born Australians and migrants alike - can live in freedom, enjoying the rewards of their own efforts, obtaining their just share of the wealth of the community.

Under our coalition Governments policies, Australias advance has been remarkable. Here are the results of the 17 years of our responsibility in Government: 3.5 million more people since we came to office - half of them migrants; 1.25 million new jobs (1.6 million new homes built); tremendous increases in wool production; wheat, meat, sugar, dairy products, fruit and so on - with fewer workers. The volume of exports more than doubled. More than 20,000 new factories; factory production increased two and a half times.   Mineral production more than doubled. 2,5 million more vehicles on the road - a car for every four people; unprecedented developments in community services; roads, dams, power houses, hospitals, schools. Industries everywhere are creating new wealth, ultimately distributed for all the people in better wages, social services and health, in education and defence.

In 17 years the total production of Australia, including all primary and secondary industries and the service industries which go with them, has doubled. If in 1949, in a policy speech I had said: Put the Country party and the Liberal party in power and our policies will double the size of the Australian economy in 17 years, this would have been treated with derision. But we have done it!

This is a story of growth; of increasing national strength; greater safety; higher prosperity; sharing the prosperity. Three years ago, we said our policies would produce 25 per cent growth over five years. Despite the disastrous drought, this objective is well in sight. I now say the next five years will see this rate continued. We are determined that successive generations of Australians will enjoy an even greater measure than we do, an Australian way of life of which we can be proud, and the rest of the world envy.

ALLIANCES

In todays world, no country can stand alone. Safety and security demand that our own growing strength be allied with that of others who share our beliefs in the right of free people to remain free. This is the basis of our foreign policy. We must be sure that if our freedom is threatened we will not be left to stand alone. So we are concerned with the integrity of other small, free countries.

The respect for Australia as a staunch and reliable ally has never been higher. Our great association with Britain and the Commonwealth have been strengthened. We have stood with Britain in preserving the security of Malaysia. Under the AZEUS Treaty we, with New England, have established a great alliance with the United States. Under SEATO we are linked with Britain, the United States and France, and with Asian countries from Pakistan to the Philippines.

PRUDENCE

We help the less-developed countries with aid, and we were the first in the world to give tariff preference to them. We strive constantly for peace, through the United Nations, and will do so unceasingly. But prudence and security demand that we work also for strong and lasting alliances. The most powerful country in the world - the United States - will be with us to protect our freedom if we are threatened with aggression, just as the United States today is protecting the freedom of the people of South Vietnam from communist aggression.

The United States seeks no material gain, fighting this distant war. Australia seeks only to prove that aggression will not succeed. And as Australia herself would expect help if in need, we now demonstrate that we are willing to extend our help to a small, free people under attack. We want to so conduct ourselves that the United States will not hesitate to stand between Australia and an aggressor. America is the one country that can do this. Our troops in South Vietnam earn for us the right to the protection of the United States and our other treaty allies, should Australia be threatened.

Voluntary recruiting has not produced the numbers of men required for the Army. The Government did try, long and hard, to enlist sufficient men as volunteers. Despite all its efforts not enough men came forward to enable us to play our present part with the British in Malaysia and the Americans in South Vietnam. So we have added to the ranks of our volunteer regular army the necessary numbers of national servicemen to meet the nations requirements.

To say that we would honor our obligations with the United States and our other allies only if enough volunteers came forward would show Australia as a very uncertain ally. American conscripts have helped to save us once. No Australian would suggest that we were not grateful that they defended us in our day of peril. Surely no responsible Australian would suggest that, in the absence of sufficient volunteers, we should wait until war reaches Australia itself before we called conscripts to the protection of our homeland. We in the Government are sure that we have acted properly in bringing in National Service so that we may join with America in her stand to prevent the outward expansion of aggressive communism.

Of course, safety is not secured only by modern defence forces and alliances. There must be great economic strength - an industrial base capable of servicing and maintaining todays complex military operations; food and mineral production for our own needs, and to earn foreign exchange; good roads and railways; efficient ports. Defence security and economic strength go hand in hand. Our policies promote economic strength. Look at the primary industries.

By 1964, before the calamitous drought total farm output was 67 per cent higher than when we came to office. Wool, still the great foreign country earner, has nearly doubled in production since the war. Wool has been helped by the Japanese Trade Treaty; taxation incentives; huge expenditure on research and technology; and Government-supported promotion activity.

CROP RECORD

Wheatgrowers are about to harvest what could be an all-time record crop; double the average crop of the early fifties. The guaranteed price covers more than 200 million bushels each harvest. This has given the industry the confidence necessary for expansion.

Total bounty payments provided by our Government to the dairy industry, to offset high costs and difficult markets, have amounted to just on 3500 million. A quarter of a million people depend on the dairy industry.

The great sugar industry has a fair price in the home market; a good price for sales under the agreement with Britain; negotiated access for profitable sales to America. The Japanese Trade Treaty has made Japan our biggest sugar customer.

In my policy speech, three years ago, I said: If problems arise, we will be ready to help. We have helped. The sugar industry, through no fault of its own, is in serious temporary difficulty. It asked for, and our Government has given a loan of \$19 million to augment pool payments from this years crop. For Australian beef producers, negotiated access to the United States market, and now to Japan, has been worth millions. We have legislated to give effect to marketing or stabilisation plans for canned and dried fruits, for eggs, and also for tobacco, which has been lifted from a peasant industry to one of high average incomes. Cotton is taking dramatic strides forward under the stimulus of our policies.

There are problems - in the apple and pear industry; in dairying; the British move towards the European Common Market; the never-ending job of gaining access to markets. Much has been achieved in meeting these problems. We will never let up in our efforts.

EXPANSION

Our policies for secondary industry are policies for growth, sound expansion, jobs, jobs for a growing, well-paid work force, more than 100,000 new jobs a year. Tariff machinery is continually improved to give prompt and adequate tariff protection; to prevent damage by dumping and disruptive imports. We give efficient secondary industry a secure grip on the home market. From this base we encourage it to develop exports with the help of a variety of export incentives. Investment in manufacturing has risen from \$120 million a year to \$1000 million a year. Great new industries are providing well-paid employment for more and more Australians. Average earnings in real spending-power terms, are up 50 per cent. Help is provided for the aged, the infirm, the sick; health and social-service payments lifted from \$162 million to \$1020 million a year. Australia can and must look after the needs of the aged and the infirm. They must be given a full share of benefit from the nations growth.

FREIGHTS

We have initiated moves to stem overseas freight rises by rationalisation of overseas shipping services; for containerisation and other modern cargo-handling methods, and by establishment of modern port facilities. Industry stabilisation plans form part of the compensation to export industries for the burden of costs arising from fast national growth. So does the \$28 million-a-year subsidy on superphosphate, and our new subsidy on nitrogenous fertilisers of \$30 per ton nitrogen content.

Petrol prices have been reduced to no higher than fourpence a gallon over city prices. Many inland people have been saved more than a shilling a gallon. For years the Country party policy urged this plan.

Special taxation allowance have been granted to primary producers; huge sums provided for agricultural research and extension; massive help for wool promotion. Suitable long-term credit at lower interest rates has been made available for rural and other development needs. The Commonwealth Development Bank, the trading banks, term loan fund of \$246 million, adds a new dimension to the array of credit facilities available to farmers.

Decentralisation requires practical policies which make country area profitable locations for industry and attractive places for people to live. Housing must be available, so must phones and TV, air services - including freight. For Commonwealth Aid Roads grants we are providing \$750 million in the current five-year period; \$150 million this year, rising to \$170 million the year after next and \$126 million is being found for nearly 2000 miles of rail standardisation and reconstruction.

Our Government acted through State Government to help those affected by the drought. So far \$57 million has been provided. Ways must be found to mitigate the effects of drought; to reduce and alleviate the personal heartbreak and national losses which go with them.

BEEF ROADS

We have given special attention to developing the North and 4000 miles of beef roads have been approved. More are under study and \$57 million is being provided for beef roads in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. We have found millions of dollars for port facilities in Western Australia and Queensland: at Weipa in Queensland, and help at Gladstone; in Western Australia more than \$6 million for port improvements at Derby, Wyndham and Broome. We have found \$12 million for stage one of the Ord irrigation project. In Queensland vast areas - 11 million acres - are being turned into high-productive pastures. We are finding \$23 million for this and \$1 million is being provided this year for research into tropical pastures. Freight on superphosphate to Darwin will be subsidised and tax concessions allowed for mining with \$42 million for oil search subsidies.

INDUSTRIES

Nothing contributes more to northern development than the sound and profitable expansion of the industries already located in the north. What has been done for sugar, tobacco, beef and for mineral development is conscious major policy for northern development. These are part of the whole pattern of policies for the development of the north and the balanced development of the whole of Australia.

I said at the beginning that we had a constant objective; to make Australia strong and safe; prosperous at home; respected and trusted throughout the world. I have spoken of some of the things we have done; of what we are doing. These are not disjointed actions, independent of one another; thought up to get some votes, or some credit, or to appease some group. They are all parts of a total; policies all designed for the one overriding purpose; to make Australia strong, safe, prosperous.

We can be proud of what has been achieved; of Australias great and growing economic strength; of high and rising living standards; of the continuous improvements in education, housing, social services. Because we have honoured our obligations and are playing our part in resisting aggression today we can be confident of our own future safety and security, of the strength of our alliances, of the assured protection of the United States should we ever be threatened. The Australia of today is a base on which an even stronger, safer, more prosperous Australia will be built over the next decade.

Note: The particular countries with which Australia has a special relationship are defined as the Commonwealth countries. ANZUS is a regional security treaty.