FOR P1~ NEoS. 9S9P/. 1916% 5!
M1ESSAGE FROM TH{ E PRflE MINISTER, SIR ROBERT IENZIES
December, 1965
NE~ iv YEAR DIESSAGE
I extend New Year greetings to all of my fellow Australians.
We wish for, and expect, a continuation of prosperity at
home; but at the same time we recognise that our domestic prQsperity
can be substantially influenced by events abroad.
So. in this New Year greeting, I would like to take a quick, 4
but not, I hope, a superficial look, at three immediate problems
which affect peace, and therefore have some relationship to our own
security and progress, and the kind of New Year we may expect.
I take our neighbouring problems first.
Indonesia's " confrontatio'of Malaysia and Singapore continues.
This is an unhappy state of affairs, Australia is directly involved
because of our commitments to aid the defence of Malaysia, whose
right to independent existence we firmly uphold,
I hope that in 1966 Indonesia, with which country we desire to
live at peace and with mutual understanding, will not pursue policies
which create quite unnecessary hostilities and which are inconsistent.
with the great principles of non-aggression and the mutual recognition
of the sovereignty of lawfully established government. The major
interests of both Indonesia and Australia are in peace, a common
understanding, mutual aid, and the raising of living standards.-4
In South Vietnam we are supporting the resistance of the
Government and of the United States and other nations to what is,
quite clearly, armed aggression from Communist North Vietnam and
subversive action inspired and directed and supplied from the ot,-
The Vietnam camp: aign is complex, difficult and costly in both
lives and money. I warmly share the feelings of those who would
like to see it brought to an end by genuine negotiations for peace.
But negotiations must be conducted in good faith on both
sides. The only statements that have been made by the Government
of North Vietnam show clearly and consistently that it will not
negotiate for peace except on conditions the most important of which
are that ' foreign" troops in South Vietnam should be withdrawn, thus
abandoning the South Vietnamese Government and people, and that the
future government and institutions of South Vietnam should be decided
by the so-called " Liberation Front", a creature of the Communist
Government of North Vietnam. In short, they wish the future of
South Vietnam to be decided only by the Communists.
We believe, as do the U. S. A. and other non-Communist nations,
that these conditions are unacceptable. So far as Australia is
concerned, a Communist victory in South Vietnam would strike a
deadly blow at every now free nation in South-East Asia, and bring
international Communist aggression ever nearer to our own shores.
2/
FOR PRESS
While passionately desiring peace based upon the abandonment
of aggression, vwe in Australia must therefore, in 1966, stand firm
in our alliances, while always hoping that there may be a genuine
recourse to the conference table.
Our third problem, though we are geographically remote from
it,. and are in no sense a party principal, is that of Rhodesia.
On behalf of the Australian Government, and I believe on your
behalf also, I have stated these principles.
The first is that the declaration of Independence by the then
Government of Rhodesia was an unlawful act, and cannot be legally
recognised by us,
The second is that we think it proper, by economic and
financial means, to support the Government of Britain in its attempts
to persuade Rhodesia to abandon its course of action and return to
proper negotiations for a steady progress towards general adult
suffrage, with a proper educational programme to ensure that before
too long the ultimate majority will be reasonably qualified to assume
the powers and responsibilities of self-government.
The third is that a new constitutional settlement should be
sought without the employment of armed force.
A good future for Rhodesia, whose eople have worked hard for
the growth and prosperity of their own country, cannot be built upon
a. foundation of hatred and bloodshed. Racial differences can always,
among sensible people, be settled by negotiation and co-operation.
But racial hatreds, expressed in acts of war, could write a terrible
chapter in the history of Africa: could bring dissolution to a
multi-racial Commonwealth; and could serve to destroy that
international understanding which, since the Second War, a hundred
nations have been struggling to achieve.
This is a much longer New Year message than I have issued
before. But my desire is to make it clear that while we wish each
other the greatest possible happiness, we would not want to have it
at the expense of the unhappiness of millions of other human beings.
" Je Mistralians are not war-mongers. -Je love peace, and
desire it for all. But what we believe in, we will help to defend.
I have referred to three problems. ' Ply New Yeai-wish, and
yours, is that 1966 will see tlaose problems solved in an atmosphere
of peace, justice and goodwill.
CANBERRA December, 9 1965: