IPTR-PPLIK 1 TRYU1ION
SPELCH OF ' JELCOIE, BY THE P-RIME I1INISTER. MR. HAROLD HOLT
AT PAFIJIMENT HOUSE, CA1U1BERRA 12TH APRIL. 1%
Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and
Gentlemen: Thank you for that very encouraging reception.
It is a much more enthusiastic one than I usually receive in this
Chamber. Indeed, as I look around the Chamber, I was a little
discomfited at the outset to see how crowdod the Opposition benches
had become, but as my gaze wanders further afield, I see that quite
notable members of the Opposition are scattered on the Government
side, so that itself is an encouraging sign.
I am very happy to be able to add the w-arm welcome
of the Australian Government and the Australian people to the
meeting of the I. P. U. here in Canberra. ' 4c feel that not only is
this most timely and opportune, having regard to circumstances
unfolding around us in this area of the world. But that it is an
honour to Australia which vie value, I assure you.
You were speaking, M11r. 4) eaker of the symbolism of
the Chair, and could I just round off your story because there is
one chapter which I think would be of interest to our fellow
Parliamentarians. As Er. Speaker, our Chairman has told you, our
Chair, a replica of that in the House of Commons, was presented
to us by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Branch there.
In the period of the blitz, the House of Commons was bombed, and
the Speaker's Chair was destroyed, so we were able to build a
replica of our Chair and send that back to the House of Commons,
and so the Parliamentary tradition, despite wars and threats to
peace, can continue through the centuries if men and women of good
will only have the determination to sec that this is so. And I
believe that there is some happy symbolism in that for us.
I hope you will find in the warmth, the sunshine
and the tranquillity of the Canberra scene also a suitable setting
for this gathering and that there in that warmth and tranquillity
there will be a symbolic atmosphere created for your discussions
in the days that lie ahead.
I said that we Vlere gratified that you had chosen
Australia. This is, I believe, the niost representative gathering
of Parliamentarians ever to have been held in this country.
There have been conferences here of various kinds in the past,
some largely attended by 1dembers of Parliament and our Commonwealth
Parliamentary Association has met here more than once, but I
question whether we have had so representative a gathering from
all parts of the world, all the continents, and from so many
differing conditions and habits of life as we find represented
in this gathering. Surely it is a hopeful sign for the future of
mankind that men and women from the Parliaments of the iworld
can meet togother in friendship ; u-ith a detormiration to find a
better-ae understanding of ea. ch other, to become better informed
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about the countries of the world and to take advantage of the
conference meetings to learn something in more detail of the host
country itself. And this is an aspect, of course, which is
particularly prized by us.
We in Australia want to be better known and better
understood because it is through that better knowledge and
understanding that friendship ripens and the causes of animosity
or dissension tend to disappear. And here in this area of the
world, I believe it is the first time that you have met for your
Spring meetings which, as Mr. Speaker pointed out comes in the
Australian Autumn, but the first time that you have met outside
Europe. The first time, therefore, that you will have met in this
Southern Hemisphere. And we believe that here are to be found
and by " here" I mean in the total area of Asia some of the most
compelling and difficult problems that the world has to face at
the present time, and I shall say a word or two on that in a moment.
But another reason why I welcome your presence here
is that we become so conscious that we are living in turbulent,
troubled, restless and rapidly-changing world, and I think we
become over-conscious of that fact because it is thrust upon us
every day by our newspapers, by the modern media of communication,
the radio and the television. Bad news travels fast and good
news tends to be no news so far as the journals of public dissemination
are concerned. The sensational, the challenging and the
troublous, these are the things that hit the headlines, and I
believe it necessary for people in public office, for their
national Parliaments, to get a more realistic and balanced
perspective from time to time of what is oing on, certainly in
their own country, and so far as the rest of the world is concerned,
what is going on in the rest of the world. If you have a daily
diet of trouble and strife, then you begin to think that this is
the sort of world we live in, but of course it always has been
a troubled and difficult world.
Ours happens to be the generation which is told of
these troublous occurrences within minutos virtually of their
happening in almost any part of the world, and each day as we
listen to the latest bulletin of news, we are made conscious of
these things. And then, of course, we can't always rely, as
faithfully as we would wish to do, upon the information which
reaches us. In a world which is highly competitive as to its
political systems and its ideologies, there tends to be in the
propaganda directed from one country to another again a distortion
of fact which makes honest and objective assessment the more
difficult for us. And so hbo valuable it is to have people
coming together in a spirit jf friendship, informed minds capable
of assessing an argument or a situation, and in this way adding
to the sum of human understanding and human knowledge about one
another, and as you go back to your Parliaments, capable of
faithfully and objectively reporting what it is that you have been
able to learn. And so there should be a good dividend for a world
that is striving for peace and social justice from the meeting of
so many representative minds in the di scussions of this week. / 3
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I thought Mr. Chairman, that it miht be useful
if for a few minutes I tried to sketch in something of the country
in which you find yourselves not to act as a sort of travel
agent or a tourist organisation but because certain things have
been attempted here which may be helpful to others, just as we in
turn are helped by what is achieved in other parts of the world.
No country has a monopoly of achievement or expertise. Science,
fortunately, is more international than politics and so we can all
profit from the achievements of each other.
This is a country in which we have had to call very
heavily upon science and upon skill. Most of you, unfortunately,
will see comparatively little of it. As you probably know, it is
the oldest continent geologically; the largest island approximately
the size of the United States in area if you exclude Alaska
from the United States, but we don't enjoy the same favourable
terrestrial conditions throughout the whole of the continent that
the United States would. There is a coastal fringe which is
reasonably well watered, but ours is largely an arid continent
and we have to struggle over much of our areas with a harsh,
unyielding soil which calls for the skills we can bring, the
application of science, the addition of fertilisers, trace elements
in deficient soils and the development of legumes that can flourish
where otherwise the lack of water would destroy any herbage at all.
This is the sort of problem which challenges our attention, and: so
water conservation, irrigation schemes, the supplementing of the
soil, these are some of the tasks to which a country which has been
one of the great suppliers to the rest of the world of foodstuffs
and rural production must turn if our production is to continue to
increase. But we have found also that it is necessary for us
also to accumulate the resources out of which development can
oroceed and so we have become one of the highest savers per capita
in the world. Just on 27 per cent. of our gross national prodpct
represents savings and our expenditure on capital equipment is
exceeded, I believe, in per capita terms by only one country in the
world and that is Japan. But fortunately, in addition to our own
savings resources, we have been able to create a climate favourable
to. enterprise and to capital and Australia has attracted investments,
risk capital, from many parts of the world and this has brought
with it new skills, new techniques, new industries, and as a result,
a country which before the Second World ' Jar was thought of largely
as a country of rural production its wool, its wheat, its meat,
butter and sugar known around the markets of the world has so
diversified and developed its secondary industries that to no doubt
the surprise of many of you, we have fortunately now in secondary
industry about the same section of our population that you would
find in the United States of America. In percentage terms to
population and work force, it is approximately the same as in the
United States. Now the most recent development which makes for a
more significant and important Australia in the eyes of the rest
of the world has been a series of quite fabulous mineral discoveries.
It is only a few years ago that we maintained as a Government, a
prohibition on the export of iron ore because we couldn't see
reserves that seemed to be more than was needed for our own
Australian steel industry. Then came the discovery litarally of / 4
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mountains of high-grade iron ore and in WIestern Aistralia, one
of the States of the Commonwealth, there it has been assessed
that some 15,000 million tons of high grade iron ore, of a
percentage of 65; any of you who are knowledgeable of these
things will pick up the percentage and its significance but all
I am told is that it is very good iron ore, and already firm
contracts have been arranged between Australia and Japan for the
supply of this iron ore, I think I am right in saying to a total
value of2,360 million, and we have been told that there will be
other markets, even markets in Europe for this iron ore despite
the problem of distance because of its quality.
Then bauxite, a basic material for aluminium, has
been found in what may prove to be the largest bauxite deposits
anywhere in the world. But when ou add to this Pandora's box
of mineral treasures the copper, he lead, the zinc, new
discoveries of nickel and manganese, you will, I think, gain some
concept of the basis for our confidence that not only will the
country continue to grow in strength and prosperity but that in
the years ahead our export income from mineral production will
probably match and exceed that which we derive from our largest
export item, that aell-known commodity, Australian wool.
Now, I have mentioned these things because they
have been achieved in a comparatively young country, ( our first
settlement was in 1788) and with a comparatively small population
of people making the most effective use that we could of our
work force and applying as effectively as we could thC mod6rn
aids which mechanical equipment, electronic and other engineering
development can produce for us. And so wc have been able to
sustain a high rate of growth, a high rate of population growth
by the standards of Europe, although, of course, not by the
standards of Asia or South America. But for any of our United
States or British friends who are here today, it may interest them
to know that if their population rate were to be geared to the
sme rate of increase as that of Australia, in the United States
you would need to build annually more than half a million
additional homes above that which is now proceeding and in the
United Kingdom about 170,000 homes. So you will see that when
you add to the problem of the home construction the need for
schools and hospitals and modern amenities that go wiith an
increasing population, then you have an indication of the total
problems that we face in this country. I could qrhaps sum it
up by saying that our broad objectives are those development,
of what are still relatively undeveloped national resources, to
build population for these purposes, to give full employment to
our people, not only because this is a cardinal aspect of national
policy for any well-managed country these days but because a
country of loss than 12 million people must make the most
effective employment of its labour force of w'hich it is capable.
Then, because we are a country of small population
in a troubled and restless are-of the wrorld, we must apply
rather more of our substance to the build-up of our defence
capacity, more than we wJould crish but certainly no more than the
hazards that we feel , e must face in the years ahead would require
of us. And so with development, defenco, risin72 standards for our
people and a rising programme of intornztional aid, we are trying
to behave responsibly and as a good neighbour in this area of the
world.
I am able to tell you that Australia has not shirked
its responsibilities in the field of international aid and that
we rank per capita fourth in all the countries of the world in
relation to the aid distributed through a variety of channels
and organisations. Now that, Mr. Chairman, gives a very sketchy outline
of what is occurring in this country. It may interest you to
know further that our system is one based principally on free
enterprise but one job in every four in Australia is provided by
the Government through one of its many utilities or through one
of the many Government services. So in a sense we have a mixed
system with the Government attending to the sort of public utilities
which don't normally call for a competitive system. Where
competition is desirable, we try to arrange matters so that there
will be competitors in the private field, ensuring an effective
and satisfactory service for the public.
You will have noticed those of you who have had any
time in the country that we don't go in so very much for
apartment dwelling in the way that you find this in Europe and
in parts of Asia, and indeed in most countries of the world.
The general run of Australian likes to live in his own home with
his own car and a small garden to look after, able to get away
to one of the pleasant places that can be visited in what is for
most of Australia, a temperate and very agreeable climate.
And we are glad to be able to report to you that as you fly over
the cities and see the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands
of homes that you will see underneath you from the aircraft in
Sydney, Melbourne or one of the other capitals of the States of
the Commonwealth, the homes will be occupied by homo-owners.
Seventysix per cent. of the houses occupied in Australia are
occupied by people who either own that home or are in process
of acquiring it.
Now I have said sorething on the economic side, and
turning perhaps to something more agrecable, a lighter feature of
our national life, we enjoy in this continent a remarkable range
and variety of experience. I mentioned that it is a country in
which much of it lies behind a coastal fringe and most of it is
very arid indeed. But it is a country of contrasts and paradoxes
in that in the North of Queensland, quite recently I was met by
a body of people who at a time when I had taken deputations in
the South of Australia wanting financial relief against some
drought which was occurring in their part of the world, in the
North of Queensland, I had a deputation of people wanting
financial assistance because they had had so much rain that they
couldn't plant their sugar crop. So we have a country, as
described in one of our documentary films recently ' e run from
the tropics to the snows". In the north of Australia you have the
sort of rain forest which is typical of tropical countries, and
rain forest so thick and lush that it is attractive to botanists
from all parts of the world. Then by contrast, you come down
hero to the Australian Alps and we can show you more snow than
is to be found in Switzerland. So you have a country in which
tropical production and temperate production can be achieved
making the nation very largely self-sufficient in the production
of items of this character. / 6
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As to production, we have been able to make a gesture
quits recently which I hope the developing countries will find
helpful. We have provided a preference for the entry of their
oroduction into Australia and this was examined closely recently
by the GATT and the GATT approved of this arrangement and we are
hopeful that what we have provided in that direction will spread
by way of example to other countries.
Now I don't want to dwell too long, Mr. Chairman, on
Australia, but it is not an easy country to discover in a matter
of days. Some of you may have already come in contact with our
decimal currency. It is only about two months February 14th
since we made the changeover from pounds, shillings and pence
to a decimal system of dollars and cents. Those of you who have
acquired a range of the coins will find that on the side of the
coin opposite the effigy of Her Majesty The Queen will be reproduced
an Australian animal, and each of these animals is unique to this
country and will not be found anywhere else in the world;
geologically the oldest country with some of the strangest and
weirdest of animals. In fact so weird that somebody has written
a book about us calling us " They're a ' Jeird Mob". You may find
that so in your experience of us as the week prococds.
But here is an exciting country, and having at a period
of great change in the circumstances of the nations of Asia,
a role , we believe, to play of increasing importance in the years
ahead, a role as a bridge of understanding between the countries
of the West and the countries of Asia, a role as a groat supplier
of foodstuffs, of raw materials, of minerals to the growing
industrialisation of Asia. Here we arc situated with a handful
of people in an area of the world in which there are 650 million
Chinese more than 400 million Indians, some 110million Indonesians,
' 100 million. Pakistanis, Itink it is-altogether some 1,500 million
people in Asia .: ith a birthrate which should, if it maintans its
present trend, see a doubling of that population, if this is humanly
practicable and possible, ( this, anyhow, is the way the curve is
proceeding) by the end of this centur e. ll, quite obviously,
if this hungry world, and so much of Asia is a hungry area of the
world, is to be fed and supplied, growing industrialisation calling
for the raw materials and the more sophisticated equipment of
a developing economy, then quite obviously Australia has a part
to play in that developing process.
But there is . the darker side totho problem of Asia,
and here perhaps are to be faced some of the greatest hazards
which mankind has to meet in the years loading to the end of this
century, and it will be the firm intention of this friendly
country to do what it can to make an effective contribution towards
the attainment of peace and justice, social justice, justice as
between countries in our own area of the world and indeed throughout
the world as a whole. To some of us when we look at the problems
which confront us in government, the picture looks so dark at times
as almost to encourage despair, but we must recognise that despite
all these problems and difficulties, however painfully slow the
process may appear to be, there is developing a more sensitive
conscience around the countries of the world in relation to those
less favoured, there is a growing acceptance of responsibility to
do something about those things. In my own public life, I have
participated in discussions in such bodies as the International Bank,
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the International Development Association, the International
Monetary Fund. We have contributed to the recent discussions
of UNOTAD the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
There is the United Nations show, SUNFED, which also is doing
good work in its own direction. And out of these processes, some
dividends occur from time to time. join together on an Indus
waters scheme or we are able to help on some constructive project
of one kind or another. e in Australia have a tremendous
responsibility in relation to Papua and New Guinea, trying to leai.
there virtually a Stone Age people to a viable independence within
the earliest practicable period of time consistent with their own
wishes, and if any of you have the opportunity to travel through
that part of the world before you return home, I think you will
find it a splendid examiple of what enlightened government is able
to achieve with the co-operation of a people seeking better
standards of literacy and of health and of economidc independence.
These are some of the victories of peace which perhaps
are even more glorious than those of war.
tr. Chairman, I have no wish to detain you from tour
important discussions. It has been said by some wise man that
it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive, but as in most
statements of this kind which are superficially attractive, there
are of course the exceptions. I hope that your visit to Australia
proves one of theim. I have no doubt you travelled hopefully,
looking to the experience of discovery of a new continent and
perhaps for many of you a new and somewhat strange people. You
will find us a very friendly people and wie would have no better
Uish than you would enjoy your stay with us and find it of
increasing and helpful interest to you and that from the discussions
of the I. P. U. hero in Canberra will be a contribution to the better
understanding among peoples whaich will be the best foundation
of the peace and social justice to which vie all aspire.
I hope that you enjoy your stay vi th us and that you
return feeling that Australia is a continent which must be revisited
not once but many time s.