Victorian state election
28 March 1982
During the coming week the people of Victoria will be making their real decision about how this state will be governed over the next three years and nobody should underestimate the importance of choosing rightly because the costs and damage of a Labor government in Victoria would be enormous.
As a result of the campaign, the measure of the parties and their leaders, and the real issues in this election, are now starker and plainer than ever. It is a simple question of the kind of people we want to govern Victoria and the policies and goals we want to pursue.
On the one hand there is Lindsay Thompson, independent and free to govern in the interest of all with a proven record of dedication and efficiency; with the knowledge of what people and their families want and with policies to keep building Victoria up during the '80s.
On the other hand there is the Cain Labor Party: totally irresponsible about their promises; with the socialist left waiting in the wings, ready to call in its debts and with militant unions poised to extort sweetheart deals that will damage employment, living standards and growth in Victoria.
Victoria is a great state with the highest household incomes in Australia, the highest home ownership in Australia, with tremendous rural output, long established resource projects through coal and oil, and great manufacturing enterprises.
Labor denigrates these and other great Liberal achievements which have made Victoria a state that we can all be proud of. Instead of developing workable, realistic policies to keep building Victoria up Labor has gone around making promise upon promise for government spending schemes; promises which Lindsay Thompson has added up to a cost of more than $3,000 million three years alone – $21 per week for every family.
And when Labor were told what it would all cost, they tried to deny the commitments have been made, even though they are written down in black and white.
The people of Victoria will not stand for this.
Nor will the people of this state stand for the six hundred odd million dollar so-called development fund, Labor's rabbit out of a hat, which would milk the public authorities of their funds and which the official expert committee of inquiry has rejected.
I do not believe the people of Victoria will run the certain risk of the kind of chaos that now plagues the Wran government in New South Wales, as it plagued the last days of the Holgate Government in Tasmania.
In every case, Labor's mismanagement in office – their inability to govern well – never fails to be revealed.
Victoria does not want a government that relies on impractical gimmicks.
We do not want a government that has to go along with what the union bosses want.
We do not want a government that cannot face up to the real issues that tries to hide its real intentions when the damaging costs of its promises are brought into the open.
We want a government that knows where it is going, whose goals match the needs and wants of Victorians and their families, which can implement practical policies in the interests of all Victorians.
That means a Liberal government for Victoria and Lindsay Thompson for premier.