Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In times such as these we need to remember why. 'The country has great and imperative obligations to the weak, the sick, the unfortunate. We look forward to social and unemployment insurances, to improved health services, to a wiser control of our economy, to avert if possible all booms and slumps, which tend to convert labour into a commodity, to a better distribution of wealth, to a keener sense of social justice and social responsibility.'

'Wherever a woman is willing and able to do some job, then there should be no barrier against the woman doing it. On the contrary, there should be active encouragement and direction.'

'The civil service—that indispensable instrument of government, democratic or otherwise. Do not underrate the civil servant. He is for the most part the anonymous and unadvertised, but he is responsible for by far the greater part of the achievements sometimes loudly claimed by others. He provides, as a witty friend of mine once said, "a level of competence below which no government can fall".'

'If you want paid agents, hired men, bound to do your bidding even when they know or believe that you are wrong, anxious at all costs to keep your favour, their eyes turned always to the next election, then you will get a parliament of the spineless, and democracy will disappear. For political systems have more frequently been overthrown by their own corruption and decay than by external forces.'

RG Menzies 1942. This is just as I see it.

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