Each election, Prime Ministerial candidates lay out their parties’ platforms in campaign speeches. These speeches are more than just historical records; they tell us about national concerns and political obsessions, wars and drought, industry and society. They speak to – and in some cases, exploit – our aspirations and our fears. We’ve collected speeches by successful and unsuccessful candidates from every election from 1901 right up to the present day.
“We believe in the individual, in his freedom, in his ambition, in his dignity. If he becomes submerged in the mass, and loses his personal significance, we have tyranny. And because of this, we believe in free enterprise; not enterprise free of social obligation, but free enterprise in the sense that it embraces free choice, reward for effort and skill, encouragement to grow and be self-reliant, and strong.”
Delivered at Canterbury, Vic, May 5th, 1954
Read Speech“We believe in the utilisation of the powers of government to achieve and maintain the full employment of our people and maximum standards of health and physical efficiency, to abolish poverty, to clear slums and unhealthy environments, to prevent exploitation by monopolist concentration of property, to stabilise the economy on a basis of social justice and to ensure freedom from want.”
Delivered at Hurstville, NSW, May 6th, 1954
Read SpeechHere is a sample of the data visualisations available on our explore page.
This graph highlights the frequency of the usage of the word over time.