LUNCHEON IN HONOUR OF THE PRIME MNISTER
OF CANADA, MR P. TRUDEAU, AT PARLIAMENT
HOUSE, CANBERRA 19 MAY 1970
Speech ~ Y the Pr~ ime Minister, Mr John Gorton.
Mr Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen
It is my great pleasure on this occasion to propose the
toast of our distinguished guest and I do this for a variety of reasons.
One, Sir, is because we are very glad indeed to welcome you here as
a person, and because we are very glad indeed to welcome you here as
the Prime Minister of Canada.
It is a long time I think 1958 s3ince we last had a visit
from the Prime Minister of Canada, and Sir, this is far too long a time
to intervene before there are reciprocal visits from Prime Ministers of
Australia to Canada and of Canada to Australia.
We have a great deal in common. Your country, Sir, Ithink
became officially at any rate a British country on September 18,
17 39 when the surrender of Quebec to Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham took
place. If it had not been for that little disagreement which was settled
in that way, Australia might not have had to wait so long before out East
Coast was discovered in 1770 because the discoverer of our East Coast
was a Captain Cook who was in the boats which took the soundings to
decide how the army of Wolfe could get to the Plains of Abraham in order
to deal with Q uebec. But at least we have that in common.
Some other things we have not had in common. We have
never been invaded by the hardy colonials who cut their way through the
Maine wilderness in order to invade Canada. But you have repelled on
e very occasion both then and in 1812, the incursions from your neighbour
to your South. We, on the other hand have been delighted to welcome
them when we needed their help in order to remain a country.
But this is not all that we have got. This is only the
beginning. If you take the two countries Canada and Australia the
physical way in which you see them on a map must immediately strike
your imagination. The size is roughly the same... you are bigger, I
know, but the size is roughly the same. Then there are large areas
in both our countries which are underpopulated and which because of
the climatic and other conditions which exist are likely to remain
underpopulated.
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We both have populations which, on a world basis, are
not large but are growing, and we both have a vibrant economy,
we both have a feeling of excitement and development in our countries.
We also have a great number of problems in common.
I think you, Sir, have to deal as a Federal Government
with what are called provinces in Canada and there are some
difficulties about arranging things about taxation and other matters.
We have much the same here except, of course, we are not dealing
with provinces. We are dealing with States. But there is that same
difficulty, that same awkwardness in making a Federal system wor'k
which your country and our country both have.
There is, too, the desire that you have and which you
have expressed and which we have, to try and see that as much of the
ownership as possible of the development inside our countries is
retained by the citizens of those countries. Rumour has it, Sir, that
there will be established in Australia something called an Australian
Industry Development Corporation, and rumour also has it that
there will be established in Canada something calledi a Canadian
Development Corporation both with the same objective in mind. So
there is another instance of the approaches to the problems we
have in common. Who is going to pay for the infrastructure for the mineral
developments in your country and in our country? It is extraordinary
how closely our problems parallel each other. This applies even
when we come to the problem that both of us are growing grains of
various kinds which the world does not wish to buy in the quantities
we wish to grow them at the price which is payable for them to be
grown. All of this indicates that what we decided this morning
that there should be, if possible at intervals of not greater than
two years, consultations between Ministers and officials of our
two countries on these various problems, on how we would compete
with each other in the world, but compete in a way which did not
allow one to be used against the other, of how we would explain to
each other the approaches we took on the problems we had and perhaps
learn from each other; of how in the field of science where we have
a unique opportunity in the Barrier Reef to out up an Institute of
Marine Biology, and you in the Arctic have unique opportunities for
scientific investigation in that field will be of benefit to both our
countries. 3
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But even mine, may I express our very
great delight that Canada, a country which has naturally in the past
been more oriented towards Europe than t cverds the Pacific, should
now under your Leadership be showing increased interest, increased
desire to understand, increased desire to help those countries whom you
have described as countries which live on the rim of the Pacific.
We are delighted that this interest is extending to the Pacific and to
the countries of South-East Asia, because here is another great
opportunity for two countries such as ours to help, to the top of our
bent, in a region which must be of interest to us both. For our own
part, what happens in South-East Asia is cf continuing concern for us
for we live on the perimeter of it. For your part, , ou are now showing
an interest there too, and if I may say so, Sir, I believe that in doing
that you are play: ing the part of a world statesman for what happens in
Asia in the future and what happens to their people in the future could
well decide the future peace and progress of the world as a whole.
For all these reasons, Sir, for the thinge -we have in
common, the problems we have in common, the ways we can help each
other, the interests we are now having in common in this part of the
world, we are delighted to welcome you, we hope you will come back
and I beli eve that this visit will show that during the decade of the
seventies, our two countries will1, in a region of interest to both of
us, help other people, and by doing that, help the world in general.
So you are welcome, Sir.