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" ENCOUNTER"
TV INTERVIEW GIVEN BY THE PRIME MINISTER,
MR. JOHN GORTON, ON CHANNEL 7 NETWORK
Interviewer: Mr. Barry Jones 1 FEBRUARY 1969
The interview opens with Barry Jones'
playiXn back a segment of an interview recorded with
Mr. Grton shortly prior to his selection as Liberal
V/ Party Leader. On this old tape, Mr. Gorton comments:
" The candidates in this election are men of
ability and integrity and I think anybody could lead
Australia with distinction. I just happen to believe
convincingly enough that I think that I would like the
chance to do it. I suppose because I feel I could do
it better."
Q. Prime Minister, do you think you have done it better?
PM. I think that's a question that should be left to the opinion
of the Australian people rather than to myself to answer. I hope by now
they will have formed an opinion, and later on they will have an opportunity
of expressing their views on the question that you have just asked me.
Q. Do you remember just after President Kennedy came in,
one of his first reactions was to say the job was very much harder than
he had imagined. He thought in the Eisenhower years it would be a
comparatively easy job. When he came in, he found it was terribly
difficult. For somebody coming in from seventh in Cabinet ranking
into the No. 1 job, what sort of problems did you find?
PM. Well, I suppose the same sort of problems that anybody
that ever was in No. 1 job in the Cabinet would find. I never thought
the job was going to be easy or was easy, and I doubt whether it ever
would be easy because there is a constant string of problems coming
up for solution, a constant number of matters on which there are
arguments on one side and arguments on another, and on which you have
to make a balance between the different arguments and decide. Also,
I would add to that there is a much greater sense of responsibility
at least there is in my case for all the areas of government rather
than for concentrating one's attention on the particular portfolio that
one had being interested in the other areas but more interested in
one's specific portfolio. Now there is a more widespread feeling of
responsibility. o / 2
Q. Coming in from outside, in a sense as a backbencher's
candidate against the establishment, you must have been something
like an Opposition Leader, coming in with a new slate, but coming in
Iwithout a mandate of your own.
PM. I don't know. I think I came in with a mandate that
was given to me by the members of the Liberal Party who elected
their leader.
Q. But it was an inherited mandate.
PM. Oh, I didn't take it that way at all. I took it as a
selection by them of somebody they thought would make a good leader
and that it was up to me to do what I felt was right and what I hoped
would meet with approbation.
Q. You didn't find difficulty in overcoming what is thought
of as a notorious resistance within Cabinet and within the Public Service.
PM. No, I think that's been very much overplayed. I don't
U think it is being played nearly as much now, but it was written up at
the start, and I think very very much overplayed. One journalist
would write it and then another pick it up, and after a while, it
seemed to remember " Alice in Wonderland" when the Red Queen
Ssaid, " What I tell you three times is true". Well, it seems to be the
didea that " what I write three times is true". I didn't ever discover
4k_, this great difficulty that was said to be there. I am sure if there was
any basis for it then, there is none for it now.
Q. Obviously, the tremendous work that Mr. Hewitt has
done would have eased any of the tension in the Prime Minister's
Department. But it was certainly understood at the time of Mr. Hewitt's
-appointment and with Sir John Bunting being put at the head of a separate
section, that there was widespread tension and criticism.
PM. You are now not talking about the Cabinet, you are
talking about the public service?
Q. I did mention the public service
PM. 1 Yes, but I was answering you in relation to Cabinet.
You are now specifically asking about the public service. I think that
has been written up, too, in a way that I think is without proper basis.
I have appointed in the course of time quite a number of heads of
Departments in the past; Mr. Landau for instance in the Navy
Department, ( the new Director-General of Works was in line, I didn't
actually appoint him, but he was in line for recommendation); Sir Hugh
Ennor in Education and Science; Walter Ives has taken over CSIRO
we worked terribly closely together. Of course I had worked with
Mr. Hewitt before, mainly when he was Chairman of the Universities
Commission but also when he was in the Defence Division of the
Treasury. I daresay there might well be some high-ranking public
servants who find their advice is now questioned, probed and not / 3
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necessarily taken., who may at first have thought this was not as good
as it had been before, but I don't think that is continuing. Anyway, I
f/ A~ t~ hink it is a necessary thing to do.
Prime Minister, I will take you on to the recent exercise
in London when you were one of 29 Prime Ministers at the Conference
in London. To what extent was it just an old boys' reunion at which you
reminisced about your problems but didn't actually achieve anything
tangible?
PM. Well, it wasn't an old boys' reunion as far as I was
concerned. It was the first time I had ever appeared there, and it
wasn't an old boys' reunion as far as several other countries were
concerned because it was the first time that they had ever appeared.
Nor, I think, did it have the flavour of old Carthusians or somebody
coming back to discuss their school days or anything of that kind.
Indeed, it was obvious as must happen when you have so many different
countries, there were many different points of view on almost everything
that was put up. What pleased me about it was that these points of
view were put moderately with firmness, with conviction but
moderately, and that having been put by some participant, that participant
was then ready to sit and listen to an opposing point of view also being
put that way. This, I think, from reports I've heard was a different
approach from what had previously occurred at these conferences,
I think a great advance.
SQ. But the two outstanding problems don't seem to be any
nearer resolut ion. Now in the case of Nigeria, I understand the
i ~ Nigerian / Biafran problem was not even raised at all.
PM. The Nigerian/ Biafran problem was not raised in the
Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference proper, it being regarded
as an internal matter for Nigeria, the Nigerian Government being
recognised as the Government of Nigeria by the United Kingdom, and
indeed by ourselves. What was the other problem?
yourself? You didn't feel disposed to raise the Nigerian thing
I felt that this was a matter where one could be getting
into a situation where you could set a precedent for Commonwealth
Prime Ministers' Conferences, suggesting actions of some kind or
another in what were primarily internal matters.
This wasn't perhaps because you were anticipating New
Guinea being raised on a future occasion?
No, it wasn't.
The second problem, of course, was the problem of
Rhodesia. Now, Australia lined up with a minority in the straw vote,
one understands a. / 4
Q. PM. Q. PM. Q.
PM., Well, there wasn't a vote, but if you mean that Australia
lined up with Great Britain, yes, Australia did. It would have been
surprising if it hadn't because before the conference took place, the
policy of the Australian Government, clearly expressed, was that we
felt that this matter was one for solution between the British Government
and the regime in Rhodesia; and if arrangements could be made between
the British Government and the regime in Rhodesia, then that was the
way in which the problem should be settled. This in fact was the view
of Great Britain and this in fact was the view that we supported. We
were, of course we, and the others who supported us in a minority
in expressing that view, but thank goodness these conferences don't
depend on votes or majorities or minorities. It was left unequivocally
that it is a matter between Great Britain and the regime in Rhodesia,
though Great Britain said she would consult the members of the
Commonwealth as events progressed.
Q. In the days before your elevation to the purple, you
were always thought of as being a great Rhodesia-liner, a great
Rhodesia front man. How did this impression get created?
PM. I haven't the slightest idea, have you?
Q. No, I haven't got the faintest idea. By the way, is this
the grin that endeared you so much with the African delegates?
PM. I wouldn't have any idea. Somebody asked me about
that when I arrived back in Australia and I pointed out that the African
delegates' grins were much much wider than mine and their teeth were
much better and they were really rather more attractive.
Q. Have you ever, even from childhood had any sort of
personal reaction to colour yourself?
PM. No, I don't think I have. Never. You like people. Let
me try and expand on that a little bit. From childhood, no I never have.
Later on, in later years, it has been a reaction in this way: Some
people seem to think you must like somebody an agree with his point
of view because he is a different colour from yours. I think that is
utterly and stupidly ridiculous. I think it doesn't matter whether they
are a different colour from yours. You agree with their point of view
if you agree with it. , You disagree with it if you disagree with it. You
like some people who/' black or brown. You dislike others. You like
some people who are white and you dislike others.
All right, if we could pass on from this perhaps, Prime
Minister, to the concept of the new nationalism that is being talked
about a good deal since you have been Prime Minister, this concept
that I think you first used on my programme of being Australian to
the boot-heels. Except in the case of perhaps the MLC where there
is a bit of Australian economic nationalism, there has been little
tangible evidence of what you mean by the new nationalism. Now, is
the new nationalism just a slogan or does it have a reality to you? o
F*
PM / 6 / 1D7 1 .
It has a reality to me, and it has a reality which can
be expressed both tangibly and intangibly. It can be expressed tangibly
in the case that you have mentioned, the case of the MLC. Some people
think it was wrong. I think it was right to discover who it was that was
buying up these shares and to make sure that that company was not
taken over. It can have tangible expression in the guidelines spelt out
not in the same detail as they must be spelt out in as soon as possible,
but spelt out in my speech at the Australia Club. That is that we don't
want good Australian companies taken over and owned by overseas
interests. We do want an opportunity to participate in equity capital
with developmental projects so that Australians will benefit from the
growth of the companies as Australia grows. This is sort of tangible
economics. Yes, but in the case of the Gove aluminium project,
this may mean an actual diminution of the proportion of the Australian
ownership, providing the quantum is greater.....
It doesn't really matter, because in the case of the Gove
aluminium project, Australians were offered the chance of a 50 per cent
equity in participation. Now this is all one asks, that they be offered
the chance. If they turn it down, if the investors in Australia aren't
prepared to take that up, then that is their loss. Ultimately it may be
Australia's loss, but that is their loss, and it is not sufficient reason
for preventing the developmental project going ahead if the opportunity
is offered. But, of course, there is more than economic nationalism.
There is the psychological sort of nationalism. You have declared
yourself publicly against Australia as a republic. But is the concept
of Queen of Australia and you said, after all, our allegiance is not
to the Queen of England but to the Queen of Australia, is this really
meaningful? You mentioned Alice in Wonderland before. Now isn't
this a bit of an Alice in Wonderland
No, I don't think so, because in fact that is the legal
situation now that the Queen is " divisible", if you are going to call that
an Alice in Wonderland concept, but nevertheless, a lot of legal concepts
are is divisible and is the Queen of Australia. I believe in a
constitutional monarchy for Australia, and I believe in our allegiance
going to the Queen of our own country, rather than to the Queen considered
as the Queen of some other country. Now, you also asked me about
psychological nationalism. I want to see grow in the Australian people,
and I believe there is growing in the Australian people a primary feeling
of being Australian so that they are happy even if they live in Victoria
because of the great development going on in Western Australia, so that
they are happy even if they live in Western Australia because of the Bass
Strait oil discoveries which will benefit Australia. So that they think
not primarily of the area of Australia in which they live, but of the nation
in which they live and what they can do to benefit the nation as a whole.
And what they can do to see that the nation as it grows, as it becomes
more powerful takes its full place in the community of nations.
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PhK
PM.
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Q. PM. Q. / 7
ranKywa y Iyfou conceded that young people say people under
that the concept of the Queen of England as the Queen of
Australia was an almost meaningless concept, would you concede then
that perhaps you may see an Australian republic whether you like it or
not in your lifetime? I don't believe I will see it in my lifetime. I wouldn't
want to see it in my lifetime. I would oppose it because I believe that
the constitutional monarchy is a good form of government and perhaps
the best form of government that has yet been evolved. The concept of
a head of state above and beyond political considerations inside that
state to whom all can look.
But this is true of our Governor-General
As the Queen's representative. It is not, I think, as
true applied to a representative as it is applied to a monarch itself,
and you are asking me about the Queen herself.
/ A But surely Australia, so far as other nations looking at
VAustralia, Australia would be better served in a sense if Lord Casey
? o ould go to bed as Governor-General one night and wake up as
President of an Australian republic with yourself as Prime Minister
next morning. We would still have the Queen as head of-the
Commonwealth and we would still have the ex-Governor-General as
the symbol? Well, I am saying that what I would like to see, and do
see and want to continue seeing is not the Queen as the head of the
Commonwealth but the Queen as the Queen of Australia.
Well, can you assert change without at the same time
altering already existing UK and US ties?
Altering already existing UK ties and US ties...,.
I don't see why they should alter the ties. I don't believe that either
the United Kingdom or the United States would take a different attitude
towards Australia merely, because Australia is becoming more nationally
conscious. and placing its own interests or what it sees as its own
interests first amongst the responsibilities of its own government.
Clearly, over a comparatively recent span of years changes have taken
place. The United Kingdom can have a different foreign policy in regard
to certain things than Australia. In the past, it couldn't in fact it
didn't. It was the one foreign policy. It can have different defence
policies now. It can have different economic policies now. But we
are each seeking the same ultimate goal for mankind and we are each
activated by the same traditions of the rule of law and of democracy.
And indeed we in our Australian boots and they in their English boots,
though there may be by-paths of particular aspects of policy, are
marching side by side not in the same pair of boots but as partners.
PML 6, / 010
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Prime Minister, how do you think the United States
under President Nixon would react to a shade more independence
in Australia's foreign policy?
I don't believe the United States expects us to follow
blindly their foreign policy any more than I hope they expect us to
accept without question their economic policy. I see no indication that
they would, and I certainly see no reason why we should not paying
regard to our own interests decide our own policies.
Q. Prime Minister, I wanted to ask you something about
ehe celebrated Gorton style. Now, how does your style of leading party
/ V1 _ J and government compare with say, that of the Menzies' style?
PM. I don't know what my style of leading the party and the
government is. I just do what seems normal and natural to do and I
don't know how that would compare with other previous leaders and I
don't think it is a thing on which one can make comparisons. I would
imagine each individual would have his own method, his own natural
inclination, his own natural approach, and I would have thought
comparisons were unnecessary and not likely to lead to any great
benef it. Do you think you are a creature of impulse? Do you
think you rely on intuition? You are often said to shoot from the hip.
Is that a valid charge? Well, I wouldn't myself have thought so. -Although
sometimes it is a necessary part of a politician's make-up to have
some feelings of intuition. But looking back over the past, looking
back over the weeks and weeks of negotiations that went into the
arrangements which culminated in our entering overseas shipping,
looking back over the weeks of negotiations that led to an oil-pricing
policy, it would seem to me that if that was to be regarded as shooting
from the hip, then somebody that carried on that way in the old West,
wouldn't have lasted two seconds, because you had to think it out first.
It's curious, though, that you should mention the old
West. I think one of the most interesting things about you is your degree
of enthusiasm for the United States Civil War. How did you become a
US Civil War buff? Well, because I suppose from sentimentality, and that
is certainly all it could be. Certainly not from conviction cr from
commonsense, one supported the cavaliers in the war, knowing that
they should not have won and being glad that they did not
Wrong, but romantic!
Yes. One supported the Southerners because they
couldn't get any munitions or anything in and the Northerners could,
and they were outnumbered and they fought on, and it's a terribly
good thing they didn't win. Again, kind of romantic. Now, I married
a girl who happens to come from Maine, the very northernmost Yankee
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PM. PM. Q. PM. Q. PM.
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State, and-she was rather in favour of the Union cause. This led to a
lot of good-humoured discussions, and then to the buying of books and
then to the buying of more books, and it had this added interest from
an historian's point of view because I am an historian that in that
conflict, for the first time, a cleavage between old methods of making
war and new methods occurred. The rifle was brought in instead of the
musket; the rifle cannon was brought in instead of the smooth-bore'
cannon. Even aerial observation was brought in from balloons.
Oh, you had that in Napoleonic times, of course.., a bit.
Well, I think you might have a bit. You probably know
more than I do, but the Army of the Potomac used this quite a lot.
Railways were used much more than ever before to move troops
around from point to point. Entrenchments were used. At the beginning
of the war, for example, it was felt to be ungentlemanly to crcui behind
a tree. You stood up. After a while you dug a hole which was the
sensible thing to do. But you asked me why this happened, and this is
the sort of evolution of it.
Can't you see a certain irony for a centralist like
yourself identif ying with the South. It is much easier to see you
identifying with Lincoln and Sir Henry Bolte as Jeff Davis
-PM. Q. PM. I told you it was a romantic attachment and I wasn't
necessarily intellectually convinced that the South should win and I
) think it was a good thing probably that they didn't. No it was a good
V. thing they didn't: Prime Minister, the " Power Struggle", the Alan Reid
book. You must have obviously read at least part of it. What impression
did you have? Is it substantially accurate as an account of your climb
to the top? Well, some bits of it I can only speak about the
bits in which I myself figure. There's a whole area in the middle of
the book which seems to be devoted to arguments between Mr. McEwen
and Mr. McMahon taking place way back in the past before we " ruled
off the book". I don't know and I am not interested in them, and whether
they are accurately presented or not I don't know. But the parts in which
I appear are reasonably, but by no means entirely, accurate.
It is certainly not designed to push your particular barrow?
PM. PM. damage me. No, I don't think it is designed to push my barrow or
In a sense, as the inheritor of somebody else's kingdom,
you must be looking forward to an election, because an election can
resolve matters. Are you looking forward to the election contest?
Well, the election resolves who is going to be the
government is that what you mean? / 9
PM. oloo
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Q. Yes, but you have got an inherited government. Clearly,
if you had a mandate from the people under your own belt
PM. As you say, I have an inherited government, but that
surely as the record shows doesn't indicate that one is bound down to
whatever it was that the previous government was thought to be bound
to do. I hadn't heard in previous governments of suggestions for Going
some of the things that I have suggested to you of entering a shipping
line, of trying to prevent takeovers of good Australian companies, of
having a new look at overseas investment policy, of trying to re-examine
in depth the health and social services schemes, of removing the fear
of long-term illness these are all things which we have done, not as
a matter of inheritance but as a matter of initiative.
Q. Prime Minister, if Mr. McMahon were toappointed
Governor of New South Wales, which would be essentially a step
outside your control, would you envisage a wholesale reshuffle before
the elections?
PM. Well, you are asking such an entirely hypothetical
question I have never heard any suggestion that Mr. McMahon would
want or was likely to be, or that anybody had ever thought of him being
appointed Governor of New South Wales.
Q. I am sorry. I didn't intend to spring it on you but it is
certainly being shouted fromn the housetops in New South Wales, rightly
or wrongly, I don't know.
PM. Is it?
Q4Q Do you see much change in your own party since you
haveg ab eene wPriem e hM iniostnerr a nd aretl ataedd yto uth is, w do yaotu see sthhev dnistanceh
narrowed in the last twelve months?
PM. I think the gap between the Country Party and our own
Party in one sense may have narrowed. In another sense, it didn't need
PM, to narrow. We had the same ideological approach as distinct from the
Labor Party, which has two ideological approaches fighting inside it.
We had the same ideological approach all the time. We were close like
that.
Q. All of you? From Sir Wilfrid Kent Hughes right through
to Don Chipp?
PM. II think so. I don't see any significant differences in
anything but emphasis on some ad hoc decisions but the same
ideological ends, I think, are there. On other matters, we are
working very very closely together in the day to day matters. Certainly
I believe it would be impossible to find two people working more closely
together than John McEwen and myself.
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As two practical and pragmatic politicians, do you see
yourself and Gough Whitlam converging in a sense. Do you think that
your emergence as Prime Minister has made any difference in the Labor
Party and Mr. Whitlam's role in it?
Well, I wouldn't know what affected Mr. Whitlam' s
/ role in the Labor Party, but I would think it would be things inside the
Labor Party rather than things outside which would have an effect on
the attitudes which from time to time he might take up.
Prime Minister just as the very last question.
Do you have any ambitions as a record-breaker? Would you like to
see yourself as a long-term 15-or perhaps 16-year Prime Minister?
No, I wouldn't. In fifteen years' time, I would be
approaching middle age, and I think a shorter period of time than
that is quite enough. Prime Minister, thanks very much.
Q. PM.
SQ y j) 61 C, V