KEVJ MAYORAL DINNER 3DA-PRILs 196j
Oeech by the Prime Ninister the R S_ rRoert Menzie s
Mr. Mayor, Councillor Stephens and Parliamentary Colleagues,
Your Honours and Gentlemen
Man and boy, I have been coming around as Member for
Kooyong for thirty-four and a half years. I suppose I must
have attended a pretty high percentage of the Kew Mayoral
Dinners in that time and I am delighted to find that Councillor
Stephens has follow0red a great tradition because on not one
occasion can I ever remember not hearing something about the
grievances from which my native State suffers. ( Laughter)
And yet I have still. come around. Apparently there must be
some balancing factors somewhere.
He has put some questions to me which I don't think
I will endeavour to answter except in one or two particulars.
As he spoke, I thought I would like to put a question to him.
I think while he was up he might have explained on behalf of
the Board what its trouble was with the Government of Victoria
about the ring road. ( Laughter) This is one of the few matters
which I can observe from on high because nothing gives us any
greater satisfaction in life than to see the other fellow in
trouble. But I desist. I wouldn't dream of putting that
question to him. I think that's a matter that he might thrash
out with Dick Hamer in the Mayor's Room which seems to have a
rather attractive connotation about it the Mayor's Room or
is it a dry Qupboard?
I just want to say one thing about Tullamarine.
You know, really, this is one of those problems on whichyou
can't win. If somebody decides that something ought to be done
about a new jet airport at Tullamarine, there are screams of
rage and anguish from Sydney which appears to be under the
impression that the abolition of Mascot is under immediate
consideration. ( Laughter) And as far as Tullamarine is
concerned, well, we started this; there is a lot of work that
has been going on on the runways.
The volume of work, the volume of airlines traffic in
Australia is multipl-, ing at an enormous rate. That is something
that is worth remembering. And what was at one stage
contemplated as an adequate terminal turns out before long to
be quite inadequate for the enormous and growing volume of
business, All I can say is that if I were a Victoriar as
indeed I am, and a Melbourne man as indeed I am I think I
would be prepared to wait a little longer to get a very much
better air terminal rather than have one that was inadequate
from the viord go. This happens all the way round.
We, exercising our authorities, decided to buy a great
aircraft now called the F1i1A which was the TFX. It was a
matter of some controversy, you will remember, at the time.
All right, well we had a date for delivery. -e accepted that
date. 4e have since agreed to extend that date for a year not
because we couldntt get the aircraft by that date but because
our experts told us that all the teething troubles taat a new
aircraft has will be very much better adjusted and modifications
made in the United States of America, and if we wait for a year,
we will have a much better aircraft and have much less adjustment
and therefore much less loss of service when we take delivery ./ 2
-2
of the plane, and we said " Yes" and that is something I recommend
to Councillor Stephens for his consideration. That's all,
I was interested in what he said about oil, offshore
oil because contrary to the belief that I entertained until
I came here tonight, I thought the State of Victoria was
extraordinarily prosperous. I owe that knowledge to all my
Victorian Parliamentary colleagues. It is quite true there is
a conference about off-shore oil drilling and it is very necessary
because there is a great argument which would be difficult even
for the most distinguished lawyers to resolve as to where the
State jurisdiction begins or ends and where the Commonwealth
jurisdiction begins or ends because some of the drilling may be
inside territorial waters as we narrowly define them within the
three-mile limit, and some may now be on what we are now calling
the Continental shelf and it is eminently desirable that people
who are going to drill for oil and who are going to lay out
vast sums of money in it should have some security of title,
that they should know that they had a valid licence without
being confronted some day by the proposition, " dell, youtve
got a licence from the State and not from the Commonwealth
and therefore it's no go." Or " You got a licence from the
Commonwealth and not from the State and therefore itts no go." 1
So, as sensible people, we are conferring with the
States through their Law Offices, to see whether we can't
determine some working principle under which the States themselves
who have Mines Departments and the like will, of course,
administer whatever scheme is worked out but under which the
people who are going to lay out their money will know that they
have a secure title. As some of this may be within the threemile
limit and a great deal more of it may be outside the threemile
limits I think we have been fairly sporting on this matter.
vie have said, " Let's pool our constitutional resources. Dot
let us have a lot of litigation and argument. Let us agree on a
system of licensing and let us divide the royalties fifty-fifty." 1
NowT that seems to me to be a very fair proposition and I hope
that in Brisbane it will be accepted.
But there was one other matter that was raised and
I did make up my mind when I was coming here tonight that I
wrould like to say something about it, You know, the Commonwealth
Government may have a very far-reaching responsibility. In
the public eye, their responsibilities frequently exceed their
pow--ers because tlheir powiers can be extremely limited in various
respects. For example, it would be in a broad way true to say
that it is the Commonwealth Parliament and Government that has
the responsibility for overall economic and financial policy.
This is true. But that authority or responsibility is affected
very obviously by. the fact that there are large tracts in the
economic and financial field which we can't touch.
For example, we have a system of industrial arbitration
in Australia which is the creation of the Constitution and
uhich really can't be destroyed except by an Act of Parliament
which repeals it. Nobody contemplates that. And therefore we
await the result of arbitral proceedings just as eagerly as other
people would because we know that whatever the result may be, it
may very well have a material effect on the whole of our
financial and economic policy for the year or ovrer a period of
years, So there are great limitations. oe* .6.3
-3
There are bodies which have been established which
impinge on the Commonwealth's authority in exactly the same way,
Mr. Mayor, as you well know as a banker that although we have
some authority over banking and bank interest rates and the like,
we don't appear to have any authority over what have been called
fringe banking institutions which are not quite banks but which do
collect and use very very large sums of money including a large
quantity of short-term money in Australia, dJell, this is a
limitation on our jurisdiction and I am bound to say on our
behalf that I think on the whole over these last dozen years we
have managed to create and sustain an economic and financial
climate which has helped to produce great prosperity in this
country. ( Applause) And my old friend then put the question and this is
really what I wanted to say a little about, about the South East
of Asia, and in particular what goes on in Vietnam. It is
necessary I think to remember a few facts on this matter because
although ihese worls like North Vietnam and South Vietnam and'
Cambodia and Laos now come rather trippingly to the tongue, these
are after all a modern development, speaking in terms of political
boundaries, because we are dealing with what used to be called
Indo-China. Somebody said to me only this morning, " How many North
Vietnamese are there in South Vietnam?" 1 And I S3id " Well,
you might as well ask me how many Yorkshiremen are living in
the Home Counties in England because we are not dealing with
ide ntifiably different people."' But when the settlement
occurred and when great troubles broke out and when the Committee
of Control was established, a line was drawn along the 17th
parallel with a provision in the terms of the peace or of the
cease-fire that there should be a complete cease-fire and
that there should be a completely demilitarised zone for
five kilometres on each side of the parallel. And if all that
has foundered, I just want to remind you that in my opinion it
can't be attributed to any default or aggression on the part of
the people or governments of South Vietnam,
The aggression has been quite in the other direction,
and it has been made all the more effective because pockets of
what they now call the Viet Cong have been established some of
them deep into South Vietnam, some of them very very close to
Saigon and some of them e~ ng into Cambodia, and these are
Cormlurllst pockets whose main object is to destroy the Government
of South Vietnam and therefore open the door to conquest of the
South by the North, by Hanoi, and therefore as I venture to say,
ultimately by Peking.
Now this is a tremendously serious problem because let
me point out to you that if Vietnam fell as a whole, Thailand
would be under tremendous challenge with a long and difficult
frontier to defend and how long Thailand might be expected to
last under those circumstances is anybody's guess, And our
friend Prince Sihanouk there are no Press here, are there? in
Cambodia has rather made it clear that given peace and quiet,
he is quite prepared to be under the Communist rule just as much
as any other. Now this is a very serious problem and the Government
of South Vietnam invited the United States of America to do
something about it, They were well entitled to do that just as
they were entitled to ask us because we are parties to the South
a& as**
East Asian Treaty. aJe were one of the sponsors and we belong
to it and the obligations under the jouth-East Asian Treaty are
several as q~ ell as joint. It is worth remembering that.
South Vietnam though it isn't a party to the South East Asian
Treaty is what is called one of the protocol states. In other
words, an attack on it is regarded as something that brings into
existence the machinery of the South East Asian Treaty Organisation,
Therefore we, partly as a matter of obligation, and
partly as a matter of right, are taking some small part in the
operations in Vietnam and the Americans are taking a very large
port in the operations in Vietnam, but it is the fashion now
of extreme people in AustraJ~ ia to fasten on to the United States,
to raise questions " What are they doing there? Jhat has it
got to do with the United States?" If the United States paid
any attention to this thing and left, then * South Vietnam would
be a memory in a fortnight. That's all. And the whole of
South East Asia would be in imminent danger of falling into the
communist hands, What would happen under those circumstances
in relation to Malaysia you can well understand because Malaysia
is an integral part of South-East Asia and therefore vulnerable
if it is entirely surrounded by and attacked by people who have
very superior forces somewhere in the background. All I can say is
I am jolly thankful America is taking an interest in South
Vj~ tnam. It would be a very sad day for us if the United States
were not. It is worthwhile when we hear these critics say, " Jell.,
why do the Americans take a hand in South Vietnam?" does 0
anybody believe that they want to annex the country? You know,.
I have heard more nonsense talked about imperialism and colonialism
and neo-colonialism, and I suppose neo-imperialism, than would
fill volumes. It is all rather silly and rather nauseating.
They don't want to have South Vietnam as a colony, I cant
imagine any more uncomfortable position than to be the Colonial
Minister in an American Administration with Vietnam as one of your
colonies, This doesn't make sense,
Well are they there simply to attend to their own
defence in a limited and local sense? Of course not. Whether we
can live without a relatively free South-East Asia is a major
question for us but a relatively minor question, if you like,
for the United tates of America. This grudging habit of mind,
this great temptation all the time to be questioning the Americans
and their motives and so on and if one of us defends it, one is
told, well you are jusZ squaring off with the Americans"
Squaring off with I repeat: Why are they there?
Why are they losing men? TJhy are they sustaining battle casualties
and bombing outrages and all these things? Why are they spending
millions and millions and millions of money in the defence of
South Vietnam? The answer is quite simple.
Because they know that though South Vietnam may be of
minor importance to them, it has a particular significance for
the defence of the free world, for the defence of a world w. hich
still retains some religious principles and faith and doesn't
want to be overrun by a lot of materialistic and atheistic
Communist powers. And they know that. The Americans have had
wisdom, I think, on this matter. They have made it quite clear
that to them freedoma is not divisible so that you yield it there
and preserve it there. They believe that the great issue in the
world is: How far those people who are now free will continue
to be free. This is a tremendous and an imaginative and a
generous outlook on their part. We sometimes think they are not
000 0
very imaginative about certain matters. I believe th'ey have
been imaginative on this to the nthc power. They know, They
see the world as a whole. They see the menace of an aggressive
communism as a whole and they have made up their minds that where
they have in the world people who are free and who want to live
their own lives and have no ambition except to live at peace and
cultivate their oun gardens they the United States of America
will put themselves in t he Iront of the defence. IC find this
admirable, Admir.. ble. And I have indeed great occasion I as
you have, to be thankful that that is their point of view.
Now that, I think Sir, is my answer to the question
about South Vietnam. The whole of this South East Asian
business is completely bedevilled by all sorts of cross currentp
and special issues. There is the attitude of Indonesia which
I think is unthinking and wild and really irresponsible but
still it is an attitude which has put our people into battle,
which has put thousands and thousands of British troops alongside
Malayan troops into the defence of Malaysia. These are not good
things. These are not happy things, but we can't be happy all
the time, We are an astonishingly happy people and we have every
reason to be. 4' e are jolly well off. Ie are very well provided
for, There has been a revolution in our economic position in
modern times in Australia and we have every reason to be thankful
for it. All these things have to be bought for some price and one
price that has to be paid is that we can't have all this comfort
and satisfaction to ourselves and leave it to the greatest power
in the world, the United States, to defend us, because ultimately
that is what it comes to in these countries, and then give
ourselves the luxury of saying, " Well, I wonder what they are up
to. You know, the Ameñ icans they oughtn't to be there. They
ought to cease fire. 4hatever the other man does, they are to
stop.", This doesntt make sense. Or when they are confronted,
by an enemy which is quite ruthless penetrating and uncommonly
successful, they ought to say, " W'ell, now, wait a moment. tUe
i. rould like to come and negotiate with you." It is like
negotiating with a burglar when he was well inside the house, and
making a composition with him " Well, you can have all the
jewellery as long as you leave me the banknotes." 1 This is
I think, a hopelessly impractical idea. Of course we want Z
see peace. ' Je never will see peace in this part of the world
until the communists are persuaded and persuaded by force if
necessary that they are not going to overrun decent, innocent
people outside their ambit.
WJell now, Sir, I think that is all I wanted to say
except to tell you that I have had quite an interesting time
tonight because I have seen about four men here tonight whom I
hadn't seen for donkeyts years. All of them are contemporaries
of mine to within a few months and I & mf happy to say that I found
them all looking asto nishingly young. They thought so too
and I waited anxiously to be told that I did but none of them had
the gall to say that. However, we parted temporarily as very
good friends. Sir, I am delighted to be here. Thank you very much
indeed. You always entertain us magnificently and I am now
going to sit down and listen to Dick Hamer tell us all about the
Ringstrasse.