EMBARGO NOT TO BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST OR TELECAST
BEFOiE 8 PM ( EST) ON IEDNESDAY, 25TH NOVEMBER
TEL1VISION SPEECH BY THE PRIME WINISTER,
THE RT. HON. SIR ROBERT MENZIES OVER ALL
ABC NATIONAL TELEVISION STATIONS ( EXCEPT
VICTORIA) ON WEDNESDAY, 25TH NOVEMBER, 1964
In his opening speech, I notice that Mr. Calwell
covered a groat variety of topics. I thought in effect,
that he repeated his policy speech of the last General
Election. Now, of course, this is not a General Election.
This is a Senate Election, and it is not the occasion for
new policies because you voted for us on a three-year
policy only less than twelve months ago. But I think it
is important to discover what is the real bone of contention
on this occasion, and I am indebted to the Opposition for
having made it quite clear what it regards as the bone of
contention. Now, the spokesman, the Member in charge of
the Opposition's case against compulsory service was Mr.
Fraser, Mr. A. D. Fraser, a very senior and experienced
member of the Labour Party. He was put in charge of the
Bill. What he said about the Bill represented the view of
the Opposition, and when the Bill was through and had got
to the Third Reading stage. he took the unusual course of
speaking on the Third Reading and uttering one paragraph,
but he did it with great deliberation so that everybody might
notice it. Could I read it to you?
He said " Ve believe that the time has come for
this issue the issue of compulsion to be
transferred to the jury of the Australian people
from this Parliament. That will enable the
Australian people to do, as I am certain they
will do at the Senate poll. namely, register
their overwhelming opposition to the unlimited
conscription of Australian youth in peace time
for service on foreign battlefields under foreign
commands and in wars to which Australia is not a
party," Now I am bound to believe that that is the Labour
Party speaking through its trusted representative in the House,
and so I would like just to have a look at it because this
really exposes the whole error, the basic error of the Labour
Party's approach to this matter.
In the first place, he said do you remember?
I quote the precise words: " unlimited conscription". ' Jell,
of course, it isn't unlimited conscription. It applies to a
limited and selected number of people out of a great number,
a very large number. That is unavoidable if you want a limited
intake. But I will pass on from that, it doesn't matter.
But this is in peace time, in peace time. Does
the Labour Party really believe that we are living in a nice
comfortable, leisurely time of peace? I pointed out in the
House, when I announced the Defence Programme, that we are now
in a state of rather more peril than we have been accustomed
to in times of so-called peace. Can we really believe that
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this is ordinary peace time, wrhen at this moment in South
Vietnam troops are engaged in combat, American forces are
engaged in combat American forces, of whom a quite reasonable
percentage are draftees, or as we say, conscripts, fighting
in South Vietnam. Can we really say it is a tiec of peace
when we have our own people there helping? Can we really
say that it is a time of peace when the North Vietnamese
are attacking American forces both on sea and on land? Can
we really say this is a time of peace when almost every few
days Indonesian infiltrators go into Malaya, to say nothing
of Malaysia, because they have been going into the Borneo
Territories for some time, and now they have become boldor,
and they land from time to time in Malaya itself. Can we
say this is a time of peace?
This is a basic fallacy on the part of Labour,
and indeed, Mr. Fraser admitted that these were not times of
peace because in the next breath he said...." for service on
foreign battlefields". " battlefields".... he acknowledges
the existence of battlefields but he says this is a time of
peace And then, of course, above all, he says that
these are wars, these are wars, the ones in which our own
people are to serve " to which australia is not a party".
Now this, of course, denies the whole existence of our
alliances. It denies the existence of the South-East Asian
Treaty, in which we have as partners, Great Britain, the United
States and a variety of Asian countries, and there in what we
now call SEATO we have obligations, and it is because of
SEATO that we have men at this moment in South Vietnam and that
we have men at this moment in Thailand, troops in Thailand,
that we have troops air forces in Malaya. Does the Labour
Party seriously suggest that we are not a party to these matters.
We are bound by treaty, by honourable obligation, and in the
same way, we are bound by honourable obligation, declared by
us in this Parliament and approved by you at th3 last election,
to come to the aid of Malaysia under unwarranted attack from
the forces and the leaders of Indonesia.
You see what I mean? To talk about wars to
which Australia is not a party you see, I come back to the
very words " to which Australia is not a party" is to
deny all reality. If we are not a party to these matters,
what are we doing there? How do we come to be there?
Because we have treaties and honourable obligations and we
don't come of a nation that is accustomed to dishonouring
its treaties or its obligations.
And if you come a little nearer home and look
at our side of New Guinea Papua and New Guinea in which we
have a tremendous trust obligation for millions of relatively
primitive people, you will find that we have declared that
we will defend the frontiers of New Guinea and Papua just as
we would the frontiers of our own country. Suppose an attack
came that way, would the Labour Party say this is a war to
which Australia is not a party? Don't they realise that any
attack on our Territories in the Pacific invokes the operations
of the great ANZUS pact to which the United States is a party?
I wonder what would happen to us, my friends,
if we adopted the Labour view and if we took up the attitude
that what happens in South-East Asia is no business of ours,
even that what happens in New Guinea is no business of ours,
And suppose the United States said, " All right, if that goes
for you, it goes for us. If you're not a party to these
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military obligations, why should we be? If you can renounce
your obligations, why can't we renounce ours?" L. nd not one
of us will take very much persuasion, will we, that if we were,
in fact, deserted in this part of the world by the groat powers
who can command the greatest strength in the world for our
protection, then we would be not only lonely but our future
could well be destroyed. Dontt let us have foolish talk as if we were
living in the halcyon summer of unbroken peace. We are not.
We are living in a dangerous period in the worldts histoiy and
we must, at this time above all tines, have clear thinking and
resolute action in relation to our own security.