K( INGSTON ELECTORATE LIBERAL PARTY DINNER
Glengowrie, S. A. J, 2 September 1969
Speech by the Prime Minister, Mr, -Lphn Gorton*
Mr. Chairman and Miss Kay Brownbill or after what you said about how
one-eyed everybody is should I call you " Madam Cyclops" you did say
durinig the course of your introduction that I was going to be stuck with the
people of South Australia and I was going to be stuck with you do you
remember? Kay, there is nothing I would want more than that we would
be stuck with you in the House of Representatives for years and years to
come and I hope that all of you present here will keep it that way.
But it is true to say that I have an interest in the people of
South Australia and the State of South Australia. Let me make this quite
clear even though I am speaking in South Australia that it is not an interest
which transcends my interest in the people of We,-tern Australia or New
South Wales or Victoria or any other part of Australia but which takes no
second place to the interest I have in people in the other States.
And this has, I think, been shown I know it can be argued
against by the Opposition but it has been shown by a number of things
which have been done and I hope tonight to be able to indicate one other
area in which we have, as an Australian Government, an interest in this
State. You have got here, and have had for some time an
Australian-renowned, and I think I could almost say a world-renowned,
Festival of Arts. You have taken the lead in Australia in getting this Arts
Festival running and getting people coming to it from all over Australia.
It has been an enormous success. And you are now engaged, I understand,
in an appeal to build a proper centre in which to hold some of this Arts
Festival. The State Government is very generously contributing to this
and so is the Lord Mayor and his Council. But after the State Government
has contributed and after the Council has contributed, there is a requirement
for the raising of $ 300, 000 of public subscription in order to obtain
the total amount required. Your Premier, who never lets an opportunity
pass to make suggestions to the Australian Government how they might
take a greater interest in South Australia, wrote to me and suggested that
the Australian Government might open up a certain Act we have in order
to enable donations to this public appeal of $ 300, 000 to be tax-deductible.
This would be in the same way as they are tax-deductible to appeals for
the Sydney Opera House, I think I find that rather difficult to understand
because it's for so long: and other projects of that kind. And we had
some little discussion about this because had this happened and it's not
going to happen but had it happened and had we made donations taxdeductible,
probably the Australian Government would have lost say
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$ 150, 000 out of the $ 300, 000 because it would be about $ 1 in every $ 2 that
the donor would have saved. And we were prepared to do this if your
Premier was prepared to accept it. But then we had another talk and we
both agreed that perhaps it might be more suitable for the State of South
Australia and perhaps it might be more suitable for those interested in
the Festival of Arts if instead of doing this, the Australian Government
was to donate $ 200, 000 of the $ 300, 000 that was sought to be raised by
public appeal. And so this is what the Premier and I have decided would
be the best course of action to take and this is what I said in the beginning
is another example of an interest in the State and people of South Australia.
I propose to take advantage of this opportunity you have
afforded me tonight to speak of some matters that are important to the
country, are important to you, and important to me.
Now, I am not going to go through all the things which are
of significance to Australia which I think are going to be the subject of
decision by people in this room and those whom people in this room can
influence. I want to talk really on only a couple of subjects. And one is
the future defence and security of this country because I think that is at
stake in this election and we have heard insufficient about it.
We have an Opposition which, if it became a government,
would be prepared to abandon National Service training and has said so
without equivocation. I look to the post-Vietnam period. Surely we would
need to mainrLain in Australia in our new situation an army at least of its
present size, post-Vietnam. one-third of our present army is made up
of National Service trainees. Can we afford to allow a government which
would in effect cut our army by one-third, because that is what it means.
Or is it not better for us as we grow stronger, as the conditions in which
we live change from those in which we have all grown up, is it not better
for us to do as we would propose to do and that is to maintain National
Service training in order to ensure that the forces of the size we require
are kept in being for we no longer have the shields we used to have.
This is of great significance, I think, to the future security and defence
of Australia. I think it would be utterly wrong to put into power in this
country a government which would withdraw immediately all ground, sea
and air forces which we now have stationed in Malaysia and in Singapore
as an indication and an earnest of our interest in the security of that
region. Because if the people were to decide that the Opposition should
become a government, then the Five Power Treaty would be shattered and
there would be no longer in the areai to our North any Australian military
presence whatsoever. This, I believe, is ingrained in Australians and
properly ingrained in them that this would be a course detrimental to
our future security. And this is of importance to Australia's future. / 3
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Would it be sensible for us because we depend basically
for our ultimate protection on the United States of America, and through
depending on the United States of America, we depend on the ANZUS
Treaty would it be sensible for us to refuse to play our full part in that
Treaty? Should we say to the United States, " You want to set up some
kind of a defence base, something like the North-West Cape, some other
kind of base which will be of importance to your defence and to our defence
and therefore to our joint defence, you want to do this? Well, we are
going to quibble about it. We are going to argue about it. We are not
going to let you do it. We are going to renegotiate the arrangements under
which the bases which now exist are allowed to exist". Would this be
sensible? Because this is what the present Opposition would do were it
the Government. It is what we would not do. And if it were done I believe
it would break the spirit of the ANZUSTreaty riot necessarily the letter
but break the spirit and that it would for that and other reasons make us
able to rely on protection from this Treaty from the United States with far
less certainty than we can now rely. For a small country such as ourselves,
this again is something of great significance to our security.
Again, I don't suppose there is anybody in this room who is
not horrified at the thought that nuclear weapons exist in the world and of
the destruction they can cause. But they do exist and they do so in some
countries, particularly in China not so far from us. In those circumstances,
don't you think it is detrimental or could be to Australia's security to sign
a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and give up all chance of protecting
ourselves against any possible future attack unless and until we were
certainly assured that the protection we gave up would come without fail
from some other source. I believe it would be playing with the future of
Australia's children if we did that, If we can get an effective and an
efficient and a proper treaty, one which gives us full protection, of course
we want it, of course we will sign it. But we won't sign it until we reach
those conditions. The Opposition will, at once and without question, and
that is another matter of great significance to Australia's future defence.
On this subject of defence and of foreign affairs, I have been
latterly thoroughly astonished at the interpretations which have been put on
a recent speech made in the Parliament by the Minister for External Affairs,
Mr. Freeth. When I arrived in Adelaide today, somebody poked a microphone
into my face at the airport and said, " What about this defence arrangement
with the Russians?" It seems to be an odd kind of growth with nothing
whatsoever to back it at all, and I'd like to take this opportunity to talk
to you a little of this matter.
Sir, let me go into the history of this a little. The Minister
for External Affairs set out in a speech he made in Parliament, in the
first part of that speech, the approach of President Nixon and of the
United States to the problems of Asia and of South East Asia. He said how
he and we welcomed the President's pledge of the continued interest of the
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United States in the cQuntries of Asia and the President's intention that
the United States would fulfil its treaty commitments.
The Minister pointed out that the President emphasised the
security of the countries of Asia must primarily be a matter for themselves.
The Minister reaffirmed that we ourselves in Australia have always believed
that successful resistance to aggression, either direct or indirect, depends
in the last resort on the will and ability of the peoples of the countries in
that area to resist either subversion or aggression. And the President
pointed out that he wished and the Minister stated that we wished as we
have stated before that those countries would develop sufficient strength
in themselves to be able to protect themselves while being helped in the
meanwhile. And the Minister emphasised and this is important that by
sufficient strength, he didn't necessarily mean military strength alone.
We meant also and even more importantly in many respects an
improvement in the standards of living in those countries, the installation
of efficient and honest and incorrupt administrations and public services,
the fostering of harmonious relations with neighbouring countries and the
easing and eventual abolition of communal tensions and racial clashes
within those countries. For all of these matters of which I have just spok-en
are the basis of will and ability to resist aggression, are the basis of will
and ability to resist subversion. These are matters which are sine qua non
if a country is to resist aggression and subversion and this is what we
seek. And in seeking to attain these objectives, as the Minister pointed out,
we have helped and we will continue to help, for these are our objectives
and they are in our national interest to attain.
Now, against that background let me carry the story further.
Mr. BrehZnev recencly stated that the Soviet Union was of the opinion that,
and I quote, was of the opinion that events are putting on the agenda
the task of creating a system of collective security in Asia". And we know
no more of it than that, and the Minister indicated that we knew no more of
it than that. No proposals in any depth or anything else have been put
forward except that one indication of an interest. There have been no
proposals, but as I pointed out at the beginning our objective and the
objective of the United States is to develop regional co-operation, economic
development and therefore security. We recognise in Australia as well,
perhaps better than anyone in the world, that Russian communism has as
its objective, as its ultimate objective, the spreading of the system of
communism throughout the world and is in that sense an imperial power.
We should feel, as we have made it clear that we always
would feel, that our ultimate security in Australia would be threatened by
the establishment of any Russian naval or military bases anywhere in our
own region. We feel that any military alliance between Russia and a
country in our own region would pose a threat to ourselves. We cannot
forget Czechoslovakia and Hungary and the Berlin airlift and all the sorry
chapters of the past.
We have no Intention, nor have we ever considered as the
remotest possibility any military understanding between ourselves and the
Soviet Union or any active military involvement by Soviet Russia in any
collective security arrangement among the countries to our North. For
we think that would be dangerous for us. That should be made clear. I
hope it has now been made clear.
But if, and as yet we do not know, but if proposals are
eventually put forward to help build the economic strength of countries to
our North and those proposals have no strings attached, if proposals are
put forward to lend influence to persuade countries to our North to join a
collective security pact amongst themselves without a Russian military
presence and that is our objective then we should at least be prepared
to examine such proposals, albeit we examine them with caution and with
scepticism and without gullibility. And this was all the Minister for
External Affairs stated in his speech. Yet for some reason I don't
understand, it has been built up and puffed up as if there was some great
change of policy or some sudden soft-line approach towards the USSR. I
don't understand the interpretation, Sir, and I reject it, though I reaffirm
that if acceptable economic help to attain our objectives is suggested, and
is suggested without strings, then it would be ridiculous riot to examine such
suggestions. And I reaffirm that if help in attaining a system of collective
security among the nations of our North amongst themselves is offered
and that is our objective then it would be absurd not to examine those
suggestions, although with the scepticism I have mentioned. That, Sir, is
our approach on this matter. I wonder what the approach of the Opposition
would be? On their past performance, on the way in which they have
excused all the Russian excesses except those in Czechoslovakia, I doubt
very much whether the stand that we have taken on this matter would not
be altered by them in a direction which would in the ultimate endanger this
country. These are all matters which should be in your mind and in the
minds of all Australians when on October 25 they choose whom they wish
to govern them for the next three years.
I have no time now to talk of other issues of significance
and importance in this coming campaign. There are other matters of
social services, of the general developmert of Australia, of the lives which
Australians can lead, but in a meeting such as this and at a time such as
this, I will not go into them, other than to say this. What we will do in
the future by way of development and by " we" I mean all Australians
what courses we will adopt to help those amongst us who are In need of
assistance, what actions we will take to provide more opportunities for
all people throughout our country will in the ultimate depend on those
first matters which I have raised before you. That Is the ability to retain
our own independence, to build up our alliances: to contribute to them with
our own defence forces because that is the rock upon which our development
and indeed our very existence will finally stand. / 6
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When you go out from this room, I want you to do what you
can in your own way to see that Kay is returned for this seat to support
those policies, those defence policies I have put before you and those other
policies which at a later time and at a more appropriate time I will also
put before you. For it is the Members you elect that keep a government
in office, and if you agree with the policies proposed, and I hope you do,
and if you are satisfied with your Member, and I know you are, then come
with us in October because we need you and I think Australia needs you.
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