VISIT OF PRESIDENT SOrEHARTO
OFFICIAL LUNCHEON, PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
Speech~ by the Prime Minister, Mr William McMahon
7 FEBRUARY 1972
Mr d aaeSoeharto, Presiding Officers, my
Minist-rñ and Parliamentary Colleagues, Members of the
Diplomatic Corps and Distinguished Guests:
Today, Mr President, we welcome you to Australia and
we do so with warmth and with sincerity, not only because you
have chosen to come here, but because you are the represk: ntative
of 130 million Indonesians, and our nearest ncighbours, and
people for whom we have the greatest friendship and the greatest
goodwill. Now, Sir, this afternoon I want to speak from three
different points of view about your visit to Australia today and
the few days that are in front of us.
First of all, I want to speak to you about the leader
Of Your country and yourself as a man. Then about our international
relationships, the relationships between two great countries, and
then the purposes of your visit here now, and in the days to come.
First of all then, as to you as a man. I know you
won't mind my saying that you were born to a farming family just
outside Jogjakarta, and if fate hadn't inte -oned, or if history
had moved along its normal course, then I haven't the slightest
doubt in the world that by now you would have been the head of
the Country Party of Indonesia, with probably a deep and permanent
influence on the mind and activities of my own Deputy Prime
Minister. But fortunateily for the world, fortunately for us
and fortunately for Indonesia, you decided at a favirly early
age that you would enter the Army at the time of the Dutch
administration. And from then on in successive movements, you went to
the leadership of the Arrmy and in a way that I would like to
stress at this moment. Not only did you move through the
brigades and the divisions, but at añ very critical time in the
history of Indonesia, you became the Supreme-mmander of
Operational Command. And then later on, you went to a more
significant post and that was to the leadership of the Strategic
Command of your own country.
And again, I believe on this occasion that Providence
intervened and placed you in a deci4sive position and one in which
you were able to exercise your power and influence on the future
in a way that no other person in the history of Indonesia had been
able to do. And, Sir, because of those two actions your decision
to enter the Army, your progress to the supreme leadership, you
were, I think, and in fact did, make the decision that saved
Indonesia and I think has brought peace, order and goodwill to
your own country. / 2
2--
And, Sir, I think I should emphasise that in each of
the posts that you have filled you have been in a position where
you could exert influence of a different kind as well, because
You did take part at the end of the Japanese Occupation. Later
on took piart in the decisions relating to the independence of
your own country. And then at the crucial moment, at the time
of the attempted takeover of Indonesia by elements that were
foreign to the wishes of ftie people of Indonesia, you took control
and you have accomplished in a brief space of time what few other
men would be capable of achieving.
Sir, vno ur talks to me this morning, you used the
phrase, or if it wasn't you, it was your interpreter viho used the
phrase " a new order". You were, I believe, and I know, not
only the architect bu1t the administrator of this programme.
And what has it brought to Indonesia?
Firs-t, I hl~ ave to go back again if I can to your history
as a farmer, because as you well pointed out to me this morning,
that not only do you look at Indonesia from the point of its
international politics and its -,-fence ministry, but you give
primary place in all your thinking to the social welfare and
social justice within Indonesia itself.
And, Sir, you have given emphasis to matters that
Perhaps other people could easily have forgotten. You have
stressed the necessity for the average man, woman and child in
your own country to have the basic necessities of life whetheF
it might be food, whether it might be clothing, whether it might
be shelter. And, Sir, I was glad to hear you say this morning
that these will remain your primary objectives during the time
that you remain the President of your great country.
So~, Sir, we compliment you not only for what you have
done, but the idealism you have brought to this very difficult
ta of yours. Then, Sir, if I look at the changes that have occurred
in the period of the new order, few of us could have thought
that in a period of what is but a few years, not many years
anyhow, few of us could have thought that order could have been
created out of chaos. Few of us could have thought that your
production would have been increasing as rapidly as it has,
and few of us could have thought that you would have brought
inflation under control as rapidly -and that your trade, Indonesia's
trade would be expanding, and gradually you would be placed in a
position of being able to pay your own way.
So, Sir, for all these reasons, I think we in Australia
appreciate what you have done and it adds warmth to the welcome
that I have just conveyed to you on behalf of the Australian
people. Now, Sir, may I turn to our international relationships,
the relationships between our two countries, and again on a much
wider canvas as you expressed to me this morning, the need for us
Jointly and co-operatively to play our part in the peace, freedom
and independence of all of the peoples of the Asian and Pacific / 3
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region. First of all, Sir, in matters of defence, you know that
we are willing and anxious to play our part and to give you
assistance, not only in military aid but also where we can in
training your own people. And whilst we respect the fact that
you want to remain non-aligned and that you want,-as far as is
humanly practicable to be able to take an bttitude of complete
independence from the operations of others, nonetheless you do
4ccept the view that when it is in the interest of Indonesia,
Australia and the free world, then we can co-operate together
ia military area because here we know we are acting in the
* nterests of humanity rather than our own individual interest
Or own political decisions.
So Sir, we play our part and I believe we play our
part together, too, b) ecause we have the same objectives, the
same basic principles in our approach to a common solution of
our problems and those are and again I have an adaptation of
Your own words that you believe, Sir, not so much in establishing
a peace zone in a particular area that may perhaps be indefensible,
Out you do believe in making a maximum contribution to the peace,
to the prosperity, the independence and freedom of every country
in the region in which both ycu and I live.
So these, Sir, are the ideals that ptomote our
activities and determine what we should do. And if we look, too,
in terms of trade and aid, so far as we are concerned, our trade
is improving every day and I hope yours is too. And so far as
our aid programmes are concerned, leaving aside our own external
territories, there is no country to whom we give greater support
and greater assistance than we do to yours. And you very well
said to me, as you reminded me this morning, that not only do
we piake this contribution willingly and freely, but we do it
without expecting any repayment, without any prize of any kind at
all and there is no other country that gives quite as
generously or quite as freely as we do.
There is only one exception here and that is with
pev~ sa Kredi*. and of course with this we have agreed to your
recormmendations and we have ties associated with this kind of
aid, Similarly, too, if we look at other parts of our
programme, I think yn-u can find that there is a willingness in
our development programmes to be able to be of assistance.
And I well remember wheD. I was in Djaklarta probably two years ago,
or probably not quite thatlong ago, I was able to discuss the
development of the port of Tjilatjap in the South of Java, that
it could be done first of all by a feasibility survey then by
ddvelopment from Australian and other resources. And at that time
I was able to tell you and now I confirm what I said then, that
Australian manufacturers will be only too happy to go there and
are now ready to establish factories if they can find, as I am
sure they will, that the opportunities for development are there
and that the markets will be able to absorb their products. .4
A And so, Sir, may I turn to the purposes of your visit
to my country today. The first one, as I think you will make
more than abundantly clear, is that you want to keep the process
of goodwill and keep the process of mutual co-operation going. I
am certain you will be successful.
The second one is that you want to look at Australian
industry to see whether parts of it are suitable to be created
and developed in your own country. Again I believe you will be
looking at a glass factory in .1elbourne, and if I can take notice
of one of tepeople who talked to me on Monday, he will be
anxiously looking to see whether he will have the opportunity to
develop in your country.
And finally, Sir, again if I can repeat what you said to
me this morning, you did refer to the doctrine of Pantjasila.
Here in other days, we always referred to it as " Panchsheel",
and that is the right of each country to independence and the
wish that each country should let its neighbour live in peace
and freedom from interference from bigger neighbours and bigger
people who have predatory desires against them.
So, Sir, here we are together, joining in common cause
wi~ th our hearts all set on a common destination and common
o ) jectives. I believe if . you look at it in this way, I can
complcte what I want to say to you and to an Australian audience
and to an Australian Parliament.
But you can well go home even now, Sir, not that I want you
to, and I wouldn't let you, but you could go home and you could
hava two words prominently in your mind and I think they would be
in the minds of most people here today, too; you can go home with
Madame Soeharto; you can go home with your friend, Adam Malik,
the three of you together can on the plane t'Lrip home say " Mission
accomplished. We have met with a lot of goodwill. We know they
are friends. We know that they will play t--heir part in the
devqlopment of the free world in that part of the region in whiich
we all have the good fortune to live".