Robert Menzies (1894–1978)

Robert Menzies (1894–1978)
Robert Menzies resigned during his first term as prime minister in 1941 after disunity between his United Australia Party, the Country Party and Independents. As a backbencher, he began speaking directly to the people through his regular Friday night radio addresses. His Forgotten People address stressed the importance of the middle class in a free society. This group became his biggest supporter, which enabled him to become Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, from 1949 to 1966.
When the Australian Labor Party tried to nationalise Australia’s banks in 1947, Menzies compared it to fascism and called it a ‘superb instrument for tyranny’. In a Town Hall speech about the proposed legislation, he said:
“If it goes through, it will represent an enormous step towards the creation of a state in which the government will tell you how to live and what you are to spend. In which, it will offer certain material advantages, or so-called advantages, in exchange for your true liberty of life.”
Learn more at www.speakingforfreedom.com/sir-