PM Transcripts

FOR PRESS: 9 JUL LIBRV P. M. No. 72/ 1967
CORIO BY-ELECTION: MR WHITLAM'S CLAIMS
Comment by the Prime Minister, Mr Harold Holt
Mr Whitlam, as Members of the Federal Parliament well know,
has little regard for the truth when it stands in his political path. In his
eagerness to score in Corio, te has again resorted to fabrication. He
alleged last night that, prior to the last Federal Election a " deal" had
been made for Mr Opperman to go to Malta as High Commissioner. Not
only so the allegation runs were Mr Opperman and I party to the
arrangement, but the Government of Malta was also aware of it. In all
these particulars, Mr Whitlam's statements are untrue. On the basis,
however, of this piece of fiction, he makes the accusation that a confidence
trick has been perpetrated on Corio, electors. There was no discussion
between me and anybody else and this includes Mr Opperman and the
Government of Malta until after the results of the general election were
known and I had been able to give thought to the composition of the Cabinet.
A moment'B analysis will show how silly, as well as unfounded,
the allegations are. The Government had a comfortable majority in the
Corio area at the last Senate election, and subsequent public opinion
polling had clearly indicated that we were again set for a good win in that
seat. It would have been much more convenient for the Government to win
the seat, as we would confidently have expected to do, with a new candidate,
than subject ourselves to the inconvenience, effort, expense and hazards
of a by-election. His loose and unsupported charge that my speech to the World
Affairs Council . n Los Angeles, supporting the United States Administration's
bombing of North Vietnam, had embarrassed the Johnson Administration,
Is equally baseless and silly. Apart from my direct contacts with President
Johnson personally, my Government is in constant communication with his
Administration at the diplomatic level. We can claim a deeper insight and
closer knowledge of what that Administration Js thinking than Mr VWhitlam
can possibly possess.
CANBERRA, 13ch July, 1967.