This is the audio of Country Party leader Doug Anthony’s policy speech for the 1975 Federal Election.
Anthony was Deputy Prime Minister in the caretaker Fraser administration, appointed following the Dismissal of the Whitlam government on November 11.
Gough Whitlam delivered his policy speech for the 1975 election at Melbourne’s Festival Hall on Monday, November 24.
Men and Women of Australia,
The whole future of Australian democracy is in your hands.
The decision you make on 13 December goes far beyond who shall govern Australia for a few months or a few years. It goes to the heart of how Australia is to be governed into the Twenty-First Century.
Above all, Australia must be re-united – united about our basic faith in the value of Parliamentary democracy; as a means for change, and as a means for good government.
The shame of the past six weeks must be wiped away. In those shameful six weeks, a stacked Senate went on strike against a Budget vital to Australia’s welfare and the nation’s economy. The nation and the nation’s elected government were held to ransom. And by those means, the elected government in full command of the confidence of Parliament was deposed.
Is Australia to continue to be a Parliamentary democracy? Are we to have governments elected by the people, through the People’s House? Are elected governments to govern?