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EMBAR GO: 7. 15 p, m . on 20 October RADIO TALK NO. 4

1969 F EDERAL ELECTION

TALK GIVEN BY THE PLUME MINISTER, MR. JCHN GORTON, OVER ABC NETWORK ON MONDAY 20 OCTOBER

Good evening. What do you see as the needs of Australia in the years ahead? What do you see of the opportunities for Australia in the exciting 1970's we are just entering? How do you believe we can make the most of these opportunities and satisfy these needs? I

see itthis way.

I believe that if we are to grow at the rate that history demands, if we are to continue the development towards greatness which we have so much advanced in the last twenty years, then we will need in these years a continuing inflow of development capital from abroad. This is so that our iron ore can be mined, our nickel can be used, our oil can be used instead of importing oil, our factories can be improved, our industrial muscles can be strengthened and

more and more employment and more secure employment can be provided.

Of course we want to participate with Australian capital in this development, but in the years ahead we will not be able to save from our own resources as much as is required for the pace of development that histcry demands that Australia should have. So the first need, I believe, is for this continuing development and that will depend on a continuing development capital coming to Australia.

Side by side with that need, and not to be put second to it, is the need Australia has for more people, for greater population, for more and more migrants coming to Australia, for more and more Australians being born and growing up and working for their nation.

My Government has brought in record numbers of migrants in this past year, but in the 1970's we will need more and more and more if the development and the employment and the prosperity we now enjoy are to grow as they can with the opportunities now facing us.

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Both this development capital and the inflow of population will be threatened should inflation strike this country. If, as our Opposition suggests, hundreds of millions of dollars should be thrown into the economy when there is not manpower to match it, when there are not resources to match it, then, there will be little new built, and what is built will cost more. And there will be burdens placed on the fixed income earner, on the pensioner, on the primary producer and that being so, there will be a diminution

of the growth and of the prosperity we now enjoy.

The real growth of Australia depends on a properly-managed economy, and it is a properly-ma^iaged economy which these false and worthless Labor promises now threaten to damage. For if you accept these propositions, then what will happen will be that there will be a paper printing press, turning out worthless money

to meet such worthless promises.

But it is not only the development and the growth. It is not only the increasing population Australia needs. We will need,, too, in these years ahead, strong friends. While we continue to look after ourselves, while we continue to improve our own defence, we

will still need strong friends. We will not get them by reneging on our alliances with the United States, by walking out of Malaysia/ Singapore, by niggling about joint defence bases in Australia, by

slapping our allies in the face and cutting our own security.

These are the needs of Australia in the 1970's. They can only be met by a Liberal Government. Don't be misled by promises which can`t be kept and which can be broken on the dictates of an outside body.

