Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to follow speeches by the Prime Minister, the member for Higgins and the member for Flinders honouring the legacy, the achievements and the man: Harold Holt. On my desk in Melbourne sits a wonderful framed photo of the then Treasurer, Harold Holt, and the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, deep in conversation, on the sofa of the Oval Office. In black and white and showing an ashtray by the side of the President, it's a timeless picture that I was so generously given by Mr Sam Holt. Sam and his family have been good friends and have continued the Liberal tradition exemplified by Sam's father.

We in the Liberal Party are sometimes too reluctant to champion our achievements and our proud history. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the disappearance of Australia's 17th Prime Minister, Harold Holt, it's timely to remember Holt's outstanding record and his significant contribution to our country. Appointed to the ministry in 1939—at that point the youngest ever to hold such a role—he held a number of portfolios, including Science and Industry, Immigration, and Treasury. It would take him 30 years in the parliament, 10 of which he spent as Menzies' deputy, before he rose to the prime ministership on Australia Day 1966. It was on his watch in 1967 that the historic referendum which would see Aboriginal people counted for the first time in the national census was carried with an unprecedented majority. So too during his time, in 1966, Australia moved to a decimal currency, leaving behind the pounds, the shillings and the pence.

Holt introduced universal child endowment, the first Commonwealth payment to be paid directly to mothers, which in turn led to our family payments system. He also continued Menzies' legacy, cementing Australia's place in Asia and welcoming migrants from near and far. He helped dismantle the White Australia policy, and migrants came in record numbers from non-European countries, including Vietnam. He was a constant traveller to the region, visiting Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Saigon and a number of other places. He was fiercely anti-communist. As the British pulled out of Malaya, he strengthened Australia's relationship with the US President LBJ, epitomised by the slogan 'All the way with LBJ'.

But it was Holt's decency, his values and his outlook for which he will be most remembered. Indeed, in his first policy speech as Prime Minister, in 1966, he made a defining statement about the Liberal Party's philosophy and his personal views:

We Australians regard our personal freedom, liberty, and opportunities for enterprise as essential to our way of life. Yet these things are under constant challenge, chiefly by those, whether at home or abroad, who believe in an all-powerful state. Our political creed places the highest value upon human personality; to encourage it, not to suppress; to strengthen it, not to weaken.

In that stanza, Holt summed up what we in the Liberal Party believe in: personal freedom; the role of the individual; a small, not a big, state; and, of course, liberty and opportunities to be the best that we can be. He went on to say:

The socialist basis of the Labor Party is reactionary, its doctrines are musty and its vision blurred by lingering bitterness from battles of the past.

Holt, like Menzies, understood that politics was a battle of ideas, not a clash of warring personalities. He was 59, and he had spent 32 years in the parliament, when he was taken from us way too early.

I finish where I began. There on my desk is a picture of Holt and Kennedy—two towering political figures from their generation, two bold people who had a vision for their country, and two men who were taken from their families and from their nation too early. But, in saying so, Harold Holt left a profound legacy of achievement and one which we in the Liberal Party and his family, and indeed the whole country, can be proud of.

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