Memorandum of understanding speech by the Hon Bob Hawke AC
Speech on the occasion of the signing of the memorandum of
understanding between the Hon R J L Hawke AC and the
University of South Australia to establish the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial
Centre, 9 December 1997
Your Excellency, Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Dame Roma, Lois O'Donohue, Don
Dunstan, John Bannon, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I thank you Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and all those associated with the
concept and implementation of the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre. And I
thank all of you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us on what for me is a
memorable occasion.
Of course I am pleased to call myself a son of South Australia. My political
convictions may be explained in part by the fact that my great-grandfather
was a Cornish tin miner who migrated to the copperfields of South Australia
in the middle of the last century. So I was born a third generation South
Australian, a son of the manse, in Bordertown. This fact on my birthplace
gave rise to a rather uncharitable comment by one of my more radical Trade
Union colleagues during my days as President of the ACTU.
We were engaged in a rough industrial dispute in which I was adopting a
somewhat less militant approach than that favoured by some of the Communist
Party officials involved. During the course of the dispute I happened to be
the guest speaker at a very well attended function.
The person introducing me started at the very beginning of things and said:
"Bob Hawke was born in Bordertown South Australia" at which one of the
Comrades in the audience interjected: "Yeah and he's been sitting on the
bloody fence ever since."
Uncharitable, as I say, and untrue but it got a good laugh! In a sense of
course that interjection says so much about the times through which I have
had the privilege of being in positions of influence in the affairs of our
country, culminating in the almost nine years as Prime Minister from March
1983 to December 1991.
These have been times of the most rapid and profound changes in the whole of
recorded history. Men and women have been bewildered by this as old
certitudes and assumptions have dissipated and resort to dogma with which
they have been traditionally comfortable has been seen as inadequate in
providing answers to the challenges posed by these changes.
There is hardly an area of our life which has remained untouched by these
processes. The industrial relationship, the place of women in society, how
society discharges its obligation to the underprivileged, the philosophy and
delivery of education, macro and micro-economic policy-making and the role
and impact of the media - all these have already been revolutionised and
none of us can say with certainty where these changes will lead, nor how we
can, as a community, optimise the opportunities they present.
And, externally, the relations between nations are in a state of equal flux
and uncertainty.
The lodestar provided by the apprehension of and vigilance against Soviet
hegemony has faded from the international firmament and the centre of
economic gravity in the world has been moving from mid-Atlantic to
Mid-Pacific and is continuing to move West despite what I believe are the
temporary set-backs in the economies of East Asia. With the collapse of the
Soviet Union some in the world, particularly in the West, seem to be
suffering from an enemy deficiency syndrome and would paint China as a
burgeoning threat to the region and the world - a view which, I believe, is
profoundly ill conceived.
In all of this the task leadership is clear. It is, first, to understand the
forces of change which stem basically from one simple fact i.e. that
collectively as human beings we are getting smarter at producing things and
providing services. This is something of which we should be proud – not
frightened. The challenge then is to match this technological genius with an
increasing smartness as social engineers.
It is not within the scope of these brief remarks to expatiate on how that
challenge should be taken up. But I would say one thing. In this world of
dramatic and continuing change it will help if we look for and secure as
broad an acceptance as possible of those values that we regard as immutable
if we are to enjoy an equitable society and a peaceable international
community.
Perhaps I can best put my thoughts on this in the words I drafted for the
letter issued by Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating and myself on the threat posed
by Ms. Hanson: "Let us put the moral position first and unequivocally: In
the eyes of the Gods of the world's great religions there is no prejudice of
colour or race or should there be in the eyes of men and women. No person on
this earth is intrinsically of greater or lesser merit because of their
colour or race."
I believe this must be our constant, immutable lodestar. History is replete
with false prophets who seek to identify scapegoats as they peddle their
simplistic solutions to the complexities of life. As we three said, in
particular, in our letter: "There can be no more appalling indictment of
Hanson than her denigration of our Aboriginal people. One does not have to
be emotional with guilt to accept that by any relevant social and economic
criterion the Aborigines are the most disadvantaged group in our community,
who, far from being responsible for the problems of our society are most
deserving of its compassion and special effort.
When it comes to Hanson's other major scapegoat, the "Asians", her position
is not only as with the Aborigines, morally repugnant, but also directly
against the interests of this and succeeding generations of Australians."
For one of the few things in our future about which we can be absolutely
certain is that the standard and quality of those generations will depend to
a very large degree upon our relations with the Asian region. Already sixty
per cent of our exports go there, our tourism industry, the surest source of
employment growth, increasingly depends on visitors from Asia and the
brightest opportunities for expanding a viable education system of
excellence lies in providing places for Asian students, a truth which I am
pleased to see is recognised by the University of South Australia.
Knowledge is the antidote to fear and prejudice. It is the indispensable
basis of good policy-making and a cohesive community.
It is because I believe this profoundly that I am genuinely thrilled,
Chancellor, that you have developed this concept of the Bob Hawke Prime
Ministerial Centre, with its Library and Institute as central elements, with
such enthusiasm and commitment.
I thank you, and in turn give you my commitment that I will do all I can to
help make the Centre an institution of which we can all be proud, not as a
memorial to an individual, but as another small but important bridge to
understanding, compassion and good policy.