Speech by Mr Bob McMullen at 1984 ALP National Conference.

“Mr Chairman, I want to speak against the Kavanagh amendment and support the motion moved by Susan Ryan and Pat Giles. I want to do so essentially for the same reasons as I in 1982 stood here and moved the conscience vote because I believe the resolution that we have got before us today, in the context of that conscience vote resolution, is part of a practical strategy for bringing about the necessary change for which other people have put the case. I am not today going to go over the ground that Anne Levy and Wendy Fatin and others have covered so well about the case for the woman’s right to choose although I am happy to put on the record my unequivocal support for it. “I want to talk about the political process of achieving that and the place of this resolution in that process. I was part of a process at these national conferences from 1973 up to 1982 of attempting to defeat the conscience vote. It was a very unsuccessful and fruitless campaign. We all felt a lot better each time we had to debate and lost but it was always unsuccessful. I expressed the view in 1982 to this conference, that it was time to change strategy, not change objective but to change strategy. I still have that view. I believe this resolution fi ts sensibly into that strategy.

“In conjunction with the conscience vote which we have in the platform this resolution can lead and should lead to the planned – a plan to introduce a series of legislative initiatives in the various parliaments leading to a serious prospect for the fi rst time of an effective, successful move to change the law relating to abortion in Australia. It gives us a chance of introducing – not just introducing that legislation and feeling heroic but actually getting it passed and actually changing the law.

“I do say, and I reiterate, that I believe that in that strategy the retention of the conscience vote is critical, not simply because it is part of the process of keeping the party together, which can get us into government to be able to take those initiatives – get enough people into the parliament to vote for the legislation – but because if we are talking about seriously developing a strategy to bring about change instead of just carrying resolutions at conferences, we need to not only have the policy in the platform; we have got to have the situation where the precondition are set for the parliamentary parties, for the Labor governments, and in some instances the Labor oppositions to be encouraged to be prepared to be anxious in some instances to introduce and support the legislation, because if we have it on the books without the conscience vote we are going to have a situation where parliamentary parties around Australia are going to be very reluctant to take the legislative initiative that is on the books, because we will have premiers, we will have leaders of the opposition, we will have ministers who would find themselves in a very invidious position, to put it mildly, by the initiative that was taken, and we all know – we have seen for 10 year what that means. It means nothing happens. It means we would have a resolution on the books for which we could all applaud, but nothing would happen, so I think in 1982 we took an important first step that Barbara Wiese referred to, to changing the strategy for bringing about this sort of change.

“I believe this resolution which I  very strongly and happily support is a statement of what I consider is a fundamental matter of human rights – the fundamental question of women’s rights in Australia – and I happily support it, but much more importantly I support it because it is part of a process that is likely to lead to bringing about this necessary change in laws in Australia. It is much more likely to succeed than the old and failed strategy. I think we should have this in our platform. I am happy to vote for it. I believe this conference overwhelmingly will vote for it and I believe that we ought to support it consciously in the knowledge and within the strategy of saying: The Labor Party’s policy supports the introduction of legislation in support of the woman’s right to choose, but it will be processed, it will be handled, it will be developed, it will be encouraged in the continuing context of the conscience vote, and in that context I very happily associate myself with the resolution and strongly support it.”