PRIUM E MINISTER'S TOUR OF SOUTH-EAST ASIA
Press Conference given by the Prime Minister,
Mr. Harold Holt on his arrival at
Bangkok Airport, Thailand 26TH APRIL, 1966
I would like to say how thankful I am to be able to
take this opportunity to return so soon the visit which your Prime
Minister has recently made to Australia.
As you may hPve learne., the principal purpose of my
visit has been to visit the various countries of South-East Asia
where Australian servicemen are serving and I have just come from
four days in South Vietnam where we have Army and Air Force
servicemen in Saigon at both Bien Hoa and Vung Tau.
. e also have certain civilian units serving in that
country including a surgical unit,
Quite recently we had taken a decision to treble
Australia's representation of military forces in the Vietnam area
and the first battalion of this task force marched through Sydney
on the day I left Australia as a pro-embarkation march before coming
to replace the battalion which has been on service in South
Vietnam. It is only last Thursday that I left my own country,
indeed on that morning I was answering questions in the House of
Representatives. The following day, at the same time, I was with our
troops in Saigon. Today we have been conducting together in Bien Hoa
our Anzac Day service.
Anzac Day for us is one of the most solemn and
significant days in the national calendar as Australian and New
Zealanders celebrate together the anniversary of their landing at
Gallipoli 51 years ago, and your Excellency, this particular
occasion has become a symbol in the minds of the countrymen of
Australia and New Zealand of the need for each generation to fight
its battle for the preservation of liberty, and we felt that there
was special significance in our meeting together on this solemn
day of commemoration at Bien Hoa where Australians an. New
Zealand servicemen are again fighting in this later generation in
the cause of freedom and personal liberty.
WTe have flown from there ( Bien Hoa) to Ubca in your
north where there is an Australian Air F.-rce unit stationed and
after my visit here where I look forward to having talks with your
Prime Minister, and other senior members of the Government and of
meeting His Majesty which it will Live me great pleasure to do
again now for the third time.
Somn years ago I had the honour of escorting His
Majesty and Her M'lajesty, The Queen, round the Australian Pavilion
at Lausanne in Switzerland where we had an exhibition and then
later they came to Australia and I was able to welcome them.
Now I greatly look forward to returning that meeting
in their own country.
After these talks I fly t-Nalaysia anu after
Kuala Lumpur and Singapore I will be proceeding to Borneo.
At each cf these places I shall be having talks with
senior members of the Governmunt and at the same time visiting
Australian servicemen. I think that what emerges from this visit is how close
we have all become, how the problems and the dangers of the one
have become the matters of concern for the other.
I was heartened by what I learned in Saigon.
I talked there to senior members of the Government of
the United States administration, with our own Australian
diplomatic service. I fuund thei all expressing confidence in the
outcome of the military situation although they do have some
concern over the current political difficulties, but at least
they are convinced that the Viet Cong cannot win and that
increasingly from now forward the military success will be with
the forces supportin. the South Vietnamese Government, the
Republic of Vietnam. One of the most heartening, and I think the most promising
develqments, I think your Excellency, is the determination
expressed by the Government of the Republic of Vietnam, by the
United States administration and by cur own Australian authorities
and other friendly forces, to combine with the military
operations services of a positive and constructive kind to improve
the well being of the peoples in the areas that they release.
They have a programme of civic action which has been
carefully planned and is being vigorously pursued.
We visited yesterday one of the institutes where
cadres of men are being trained to go into' villages in support of
the defensive capacity of the villages, but at the same tine to
give specialist service and training so that the economic strength
of the village anm the well-being of the people can be materially
improved and perhaps in this kind of combination of collaboration
for purposes of security and welfare we have one of the really
important answers to the people of Asia in general.
e can all watch with interest what develops in this
direction because success will be a great victory for those who
value freedom.
QUESTION: Recently you introduced conscription in Australia
I am wondering if this might make it possible for you to have more
troops free to come to Thailand in the near future?
MR. HOLT: , ell, we have commitments in a number of directions;
naturally there develops a cortain amount of pressure from various
sources for us to increase our establishment in each of those
places. I do not doubt that it would be desired that we should
3.
have more people in Vietnam or more pcople in Borneo but you must
remember that Australia is a country of less than 12,000,000
people, that we are currently trying to develop a continent the
size of the United States olo America and that we have this
combination of tasks, the normal tasks of a modern Governnicnt,
which are difficult enough, but added to those are the tasks of
increasing our defonce establishment and of the development of
projects which if carried through will add to our own capacity
to extend further aid,. further military assistance to other
people in need of it in this area of the world.