" FOUR CORNERS"
INTERVIEW GIVEN BY THE PRIME MINISTER,
MR. JOHN GORTON, FOR ABC TELEVISION NETWORK
Recorded on 28 August for viewing on 30 August 1969
Interviewer: Michael Willesee
The Prime Minister used Question Time in the House
this week to take a verbal big stick to Mr. Whitlam's health proposals
and by the opinion of most who were there at the time, Mr. Gorton
gave Mr. Whitlam a beating. Mr. Gorton's performance probably
wasn't much of a vote-winner because Parliamentary clashes are
rather an "" thing but it was a flying start psychologically for Mr.
Gorton and his team. It could well be that Mr. Gorton needs this
start because he is very much the man in the hot seat. He inherited
a record majority from the late Mr. Holt and there is pressure on
him to hold it. Mr. Gorton could come home a comfortable winner
by say twenty seats and still face criticism for the seats he lost, and
he faces a hostile Democratic Labor Party. None of his predecessors
had to do that. If the DLP carries out its threat of switching its
preferences from the Government in selected seats, then Mr. Gorton
would almost certainly lose some seats. With the election eight
weeks to go, we invited Mr. Gorton to talk with us in Canberra.
Q. Mr. Gorton, firstly, have you bowed to any pressure
from the DLP this week or in the last few weeks?
PM. Neither this week nor in the last few weeks nor at any
time in the past nor at any time in the future.
Q. Mr. Gorton, can I ask you specifically, did you impose
on Mr. Freeth last Monday to alter a statement he was making in
response to an attack from Senator Gair?
PM. Which statement was this? Oh, this was a statement
where Mr. Freeth was defending himself against the personal attacks
that had been made on him by Senator Gair. I had a talk with Mr.
Freeth. After all, it is not unusual for Ministers and Prime Ministers
to talk, and indicated that I thought the proper attitude for a government
and ministers to adopt was not to attack the DLP, which after all are
a party of principle. We don't need to attack them or to denigrate
them, merely to say that they have a right to do what they like with
their preferences but they have got to consider the different policies
which they must choose between. Mr. Freeth has got a right and so
has anybody else to come back against personal attacks or
misrepresentation of his words. / 2
Q. In talking with Mr. Freeth, did you suggest that he add
the allegation that in certain quarters of the ALP there was some
sympathy for communist policies?
PM. No, he had that in himself. He had in his speech
himself the words that he had thought that although the ALP itself was
not communist, and would agree with him on that I mean, you take
ALP Members of Parliament or their supporters, of course they are
not communist but he had indicated before that he felt there was
communist influence in sections of the ALP through communistdominated
trade unions and matters of that kind, and he reiterated
that.
Q. Prime Minister, could we go back to Mr. Yreeth's
statement of August 14 which started all this, and I think there is a
lot of misunderstanding around it. In this statement, Mr. Freeth
welcomed the opportunity of practical and constructive dealings with
the Soviets and said it was natural that they should promote their
presence in our area. Now, firstly, did you approve of that statement?
PM. Yes, I did. I approved of the statement and I approve
of your quotation of it which is better than the quotation when you
first spoke to Mr. Freeth. Do you remember when you were
interviewing Mr. Freeth and you said: " Why, Mr. Freeth, did you
welcome the Russians?". Well, Mr. Freeth didn't, but he welcomed
the opportunity of constructive discussions and you have put it
completely in its proper context.
Q. Thank you.' Prime Minister, did Cabinet approve of
Mr. Freeth's statement'?
PM. No. I don't know of any occasion since I've been in
Parliament or in Cabinet when a foreign affairs statement has been
taken to Cabinet or gone through Cabinet.
Q. Did Mr. Fairhall, your Minister for Defence, see
the statement?
PM. As far as I know he didn't see the statement but equally
as far as I know he completely agrees with it and agreed with it and
would have agreed with it.
Q. Wouldn't you think that was a little bit unusual that a
Minister for Defence shouldn't see a defence statement?
PM. Well, it's rnot really a defence statement. It's hard to
draw the line, I suppose, between defence and foreign affairs. / 3
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Q. It certainly went into Mr. Fairhall's area.
PM. I don't know of any occasions, for instance, when Sir
Garfield Barwick was there or Paul Hasluck was there where statements
on foreign policy ever went through Cabinet or to other Ministers
other than the Prime Minister. I don't know of any.
Q. Prime Minister, the biggest point of debate over Mr.
Freeth's statement: Was it a significant policy change?
PM. I don't think it was a significant policy change. It has
been so interpreted but I don't think it was. Look, what Gordon Freeth
said was this. He said we must remember that the Russians have
invaded Czechoslovakia. We must remember that they have I think
I quote correctly " a pernicious doctrine of only limited sovereignty"...
Q. Yes, but whatever these qualifications they don't really
alter the fact do they that he did make statements that were unusual
coming from an Australia Government?
PM. Well, if they were unusual they were as a result of
unusual and completely changed circumstances. Now, where does the
unusuality lie? He said, and I agree, we in Australia have requirements
that we would like to see carried out in the area to our North. We
would like to see the countries economically developed. We would like
to see trade routes opened. We would like to see the standard of living
rising, and we would like to see them retain their own identity and
their own sovereignty. Now, we have for some time ourselves been
trying to get non-aggression pacts and things of that kind in the area
between individual countries and this is in our national interest. The
Russians have said something which they haven't spelt out which was
that they were interested in much the same sort of thing. Now we don't
know what they are interested in. What Gordon Freeth said was that if
they make propositions which seem to be in line with our own national
aspirations, then we would be prepared to look at them and not just
reject them because they came from Russia.
Q. Would you agree then there could be a significant policy
change in the light of the changed circumstances of that area?
PM. Well, if Russia went to the length of maijrzg some
proposals, which sheihasn't yet done and if those proposals were, in
our judgment, in line with our own and didn't pose dangers because of
Russia's general attitude and actions didn't pose those dangers then
it could be, particularly if the Americans maintain the same sort of
diplomatic and economic influence that they have spoken of, it could
be of assistance to our national aspirations.
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Q. Prime Minister, moving on to the defence cut in the
Budget. Mr. Fairhall said, " We are more interested in programmes
to meet our needs, not in any arithmetic of expenditure"'. Do you go
along with this?
PM. Well, yes, I go along with it if I give it this meaning
which I think Mr. Fairhall would give it. That there is no point in
spending large sums of money merely to be able to point to the
arithmetic and say, " Look at the large sums of money we are spending".
That is fairly pointless. It is more important to get the kind of
material and the kind of equipment that you want. But I wouldn't say,
and I don't think he said or could have been interpreted to have said
that you would cut down your arithmetical sum. Merely, that you
wouldn't make he said merely that you wouldn't make the size
of your arithmetical sum the real test. The test would be what were
you getting and what did you need?
Q. Gould I draw your attention then to a statement you made
after last year's Budget when you said the vote or the expenditure then
indicated the importance you attached to defence. Doesn't this seem
a little bit contradictory?
PM. Except that after last year's Budget we were building up
not only arithmetical sums of money but also the hardware that those
arithmetical sums of money represented and in last year the payments
fell due whereas in this year there is still coming in the hardware but
payments for them, I understand, are being carried over into the next
financial year.
Q. Now, despite your defence cut in the Budget and the
resignation of your Defeiice Minister, Mr. Fairhall, do you still wish
to make defence the key issue in the next election?
PM. I think that defence will be a key issue in the election.
I think it must be because there are such clearly-delineated differences
between the Labor Party and ourselves in this field.
Q. A couple of quick points on defence not quite related.
The F-Ill decision. Can you tell us when that will be taken?
PM. No, indeed I have never promised that an F-ill decision
would be taken before an election though I have been so reported. What
I have done is said I would do my very best to get a decision made and
announced before the election and this I wanted to do and this I believe
I will be able to do. I believe we will be able to make it before the
election. Well before the election.
Q. Could you indicate a date? You do have the report
before you now?
PM. Well, I haven't yet seen it but I understand that it has
been completed. I understand it has just been completed.
Q. So perhaps a couple of weeks?
PM. Perhaps: Who knows?
Q. On the point of a phased withdrawal from Vietnam the
Americans are doing this and you have indicated we shouldn't do this.
Why not?
PM. I have indicated that I thought that if and when our troops
were withdrawn from Vietnam they should not be withdrawn in driblets.
The ground troops which are the ones I am speaking of being three
battalions and ancillary services and tanks and so on being a viable
force should be regarded as a force and either left or withdrawn; but
you don't take out some companies or one battalion or something which
is what the Labor Party, I understand, is talking of doing.
Q. But if you did take some out wouldn't you then go back
to the arrangement you had before, before you built up
PM. Yes, you would. The arrangement which was found to
be unsatisfactory, to be inefficient, to probably present greater
dangers to the two battalions who are left than the three who are there
now. You go back to a situation which was unsatisfactory and which
we corrected.
Q. Prime Minister, before we leave this area, what is your
reaction to DLP threats?
PM. I think the DLP is a party which has a perfect right to
make up its own mind as to which policies it should follow and nobody
can have any objections to that. And if they feel that some other policy
is better than our own, then they have a right to direct their preferences
or seek to direct their preferences as they may wish.
Q. That is not a reaction, though, is it, when they threaten
you? / 6
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PM. Oh, what is my own reaction... 0. Well, is this a
reaction then? That I feel that since they are a party which was formed,
believing in the importance of defence and thinking the Labor Party
would not provide it, since they are a party formed believing that there
was, through communist-dominated unions influence oll1 the Labor
Party and not on ourselves, I do not see how they can in principle
support at this election a Labor Party whose defence policies are so
different from ours, so much further away from theirs than ours. Is
that a reaction?
Q. Perhaps! How many seats do you think you owe the DLP?
How many seats have they delivered to you?
PM. How many seats have they delivered to us as a result
Of.
Q. Their preferences.
PM. Well, it depends on whether you count all the seats in
which perhaps we needed five or eight or ten per cent of their
preferences. I would not count such seats as seats which were won as
a result of DLP preferences, even though we might have needed ten
per cent or fifteen per cent, because I believe they would have been
likely to have come anyway. I would say there might be four or five,
possibly six, where we wiould need fifty per cent or in some cases
seventy per cent of DLP preferences. So in that sense, without being
able to answer you exactly, that would be about of the order. Of
course, the DLP owe, I would say, at least two and maybe more seats
to us for our preferences.
Q. Is that a counter-threat?
PM. No, no. just pointing out one of the facts of life.
Q. Prime Minister, I would like to look more closely at
you and firstly your impression, your personal impression on
government. You have been accused of political patronage in
government guilty or not guilty?
PM. What does political patronage mean?
Q. I would think bringing a friend in, all things being equal
perhaps? ./ 7
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PM. I would think, on the whole, not guilty. The last two
appointments that I made to the Ministry, I think, were one of the
causes of this. Now, Mr. Freeth could scarcely though I like him
very much have been described as a great friend of mine. For
example, when we were contesting the Prime Ministership he was
quite openly and quite decently and quite honestly doing his best to
defeat me, so there could scarcely be a charge of patronage there.
On the other hand, Mr. Dudley Erwin was supporting me. There
again, he was the Whip, which is not always but usually not always
the stepping-stone to an appointment further up.
Q. Whether guilty or not guilty, do you think it is
necessarily a bad thing to have this sort of political patronage?
Pm. Yes, I do if the person is not competent to do the job.
I don't think it's a bad thing if the person is you know, other things
being equal is as good as anyone else.
Q. In various ways, commentators talk about your
independence. Firstly, is it true, and if it is, is that a natural thing
or some sort of deliberate policy?
PM. Independence? Of what?
Q. Oh, independence of the Party, of Cabinet, of the
bureaucracy.
PM. Well, I think one ought to be not independent of, but
certainly not swayed by the bureaucracy. One should listen to their
advice but one * should then form one's own judgment after having had
the benefit of that.
Q. Could we make it comparative? Do you think perhaps
you are more independent than perhaps Prime Minister Holt?
PM. Well, I think comparisons are fairly odious. I would
just say that I don't believe one ought to be swayed by the bureaucracy.
I think one should pay attention, considerable attention to what people
in one's Party say, not be bound by it, and this has always been the
way in which Liberal Prime Ministers have operated. This is not
something from me, myself. As to the Cabinet, then there again,
when you have a strong majority feeling one way, I think one should
do what the Cabinet wants unless one believes that something is so
highly significant and highly important that one couldn't go along with
it oneself.
Q. And that has happened fairly often with you in two years,
hasn't it? ,/ 8
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PM. Not terribly often maybe once or twice.
Q. But haven't there been six, perhaps ten occasions when
you have stepped in and taken over a matter that would normally be
under the responsibility of a Minister shipping, MLC
PM. MLC, yes. MLC is a complete point in support of the
case that you are making. Shipping is quite the reverse. I think
there were six Cabinet meetings on shipping initiated by the Minister
for Trade, and at one stage culminating in the Minister for Trade
being sent by Cabinet to the United Kingdom to make a negotiation the
terms of which were in a Cabinet decision and which were very very
close to the ultimate terms decided on.
Q. How about the recent Budget where it appeared that your
imprint was fairly strongly on that because it wasn't quite the advice
the Treasury had given you?
PM. Yes, I think well, I wouldn't say it wasn't quite
the advice the Treasury had given me. I am not going to venture into
that matter. But such things as assistance to social services and the
tapered means test are certainly things which I felt very strongly
on and fought for. Not alone other Ministers were with me too.
Q. Prime Minister, in talking about you in this area of your
impression on government, the name Cyrus Hewitt often comes up.
You appointed him to head your Prime Minister's Department. He is
sometimes said to have unusual power. Firstly your comnment on this
and also could I ask you perhaps whether you regard him more as the
sort of adviser that an American P resident might take to off ice with
him?
PM. I don't thik he has got unusual power at all. People
have been writing this for some time now. You know, journalists tend
to each other up a little. Somebody writes it and somebody else repeats
it, somebody else repeats and after a while it becomes part of folklore.
But I don'~ t think he has got any unusual power whatever. He certainly
hasn't with me and I don't think he has with other Ministers and I doubt
if he has with the Departmental Heads. He would be onte of the advisers
I would look to but as I say, one looks to the Heads of the Bureaucracy
for advice and then makes up Oize' s own mind.
Q. Prime Minister, in this question, I am not inferring any
unusual amount inside criticism, but presuming there must always be
some, do you concern yourself about criticism from the inside or do
you feel..
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PM. You mean from the Party members
Q. Yes, perhaps more particularly Cabinet, but also within
the Party.
PM. I don't concern myself with criticism from within the
Cabinet because I think there is very very little. I may be quite wrong
but I don't know of any anyway but it is quite possible it could be but if
so I don't know of it. Within the Party, one seeks to do one's best to
give Party members the opportunity to express their views, to realise
that the things that they really believe in and really put forward are
thoroughly examined and are not accepted for what can be argued to
be good reasons. Having done that, then I think one just has to put up
with the criticism, because whatever one does with a large group of
people, one is never going to please everybody, so there is always
going to be some criticism.
Q. How do you see your policy-making role in relation to
the Liberal Party?
PM. Well, I think that the time has come, and I think it is
evident in this country that it has come when the Liberal Party has
got to re-examine the dogmas of the quiet past in the light of the
changing present. We have got to re-examine our defence and foreign
affairs commitments because of the changes of Britain going, of the
United States perhaps not being so interested in providing troops
assistance to our North. We have got to examine the requirement for
as much Australian participation in development as is possible,
instead of just accepting without question, without asking for Australian
participation.
Q. In these respects do you see yourself as a man of change?
PM. Yes, I think so. I think too in seeking to re-evaluate
social welfare and to move from a situation of merely raising 50 cents
or one dollar across the board to try to find areas of need and doing
what you can in them and at the same time trying to reward thrift and
seeing that is not held back. These are changes and these are things
we are doing.
Q. When you talk about the need for the Party to change,
are you suggesting some section of the Party at least might be lagging
behind?
PM. No, I think they are going along I think the
Party is very happy with these sorts of changes. We want to try
and provide opportunities for the individual to express himself
not just to have a job though it is essential that there should be
full employment, but to have the chance to do the sort of job
which appeals to him and which he can feel happy in doing rather
than one which he just has to do unhappily in order to earn a
living. Now these are things you can do through education,
through technological education, through the opportunity for
adult education and re-education and you can do it too through
expanding the opportunities in the arts and this again is
something I think
Q. Prime Minister, to wind up, how long would
you like to remain Prime Minister?
PM. Well it depends on how I am feeling. If I am
feeling good and healthy I think well, you know, when I am
feeling good and healthy I think it would be lovely to be there
for a long time. If you get a little tired you think, oh, it's a
bit wearing and it's my fault there is a drought in Queensland
and I can't sleep and it's my fault that something has gone wrong
somewhere else or it's my fault there is an argument in a union.
This sort of thing.
Q. Does any consensus come out of this?
Pm. Oh well on those occasions you think to yourself,
well, really I don't want to be Prime Minister for more thanl
another twenty years.'
Q. Prime Minister, thanks for talking to " Four
Corners"