PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH, SOUTH PACIFIC CONFERENCE, RAROTONGA,
26 SEPTEMBER 1974
PRIME MINISTER: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: thank
you very much indeed for allowing me to say a few words to
you at your conference. This is my first visit to the Cook
Islands and I am making this visit because of the hospitality,
the very good personal relations which Sir Albert Henry has
been able to establish with so many people over the years at
various conferences. I have attended, as a member, the South
Pacific Forum. I did so shortly after becoming Prime Minister
in April last year. The conference was held in western Samoa,
and the conference was held a few months earlier than had
originally been arranged because there had been brand new governments
in New Zealand as well as in Australia in December 1972. On that
occasion, as a full member of a South Pacific body, I was able
to learn more closely than ever before many of the things which
concerned us jointly as well as individually. The South Pacific
Commission is the first of these bodies to be created it was
created under the Canberra Agreement named after Australia's
capital in 1947. It seems now very much an. archaic and fraternal
body. It was composed entirely of metropolitan powers. It became
clear for many years past that that was not enough to satisfy
the aspirations of the people of the South Pacific and thereupon
theSouth Pacific Conference emerged. It * was composed of all the
territories in the South Seas. Those who were independent, those
that were associated with metropolitan powers, but they were all
represented there. And eventually the South Pacific Conference
came to discuss matters of great substance, matters which concerned
all the people whatever their language, whatever their political
arrangements and now the position of the Commission and the
Conference has been very largely transposed. Now, I am happy
that last year my country was very anxious that the conference
should become even more significant and the Commission should
become a Commission of the Commonwealth. As I understand it my
country is not entitled to be a member of the conference except
in so far as it has responsibilities for Norfolk Island and still
for Papua New Guinea. By the time of the next South Pacific
Conference I would expect that Papua New Guinea, in international
terms, will be an independent country as, from Australia's point
of view, we are already happy to regard. But as head of government
in my country I am able to attend meetings of the South Pacific
Forum and I find it a very interesting and significant body.
At the conference, over the next few days, my Government
will be represented by Mr. Bill Morrison who was a member of the
Australian diplomatic service for about 20 years before he became
a minister in my government. As a member of the diplomatic service
he has served in Singapore and Malaysia and had responsibilities
on behalf of Australia in many programs thatAustralia was engaged
in in some parts of Malaysia. He therefore comes to this conference
with twenty years or more experience of international arrangements
and particularly in developing countries; countries developing
not only economically but politically. When I formed my government
I made him the last minister in charge of External Territories,
in effect Papua New Guinea. When last December Papua New Guinea
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bdcame self-governing, we in Australia no longer regarded it
as appropriate to have a minister responsible for it, so he
retained the position of Minister for Science but we have
wanted him to continue as Minister Assisting the Foreign
Minister in respect of the affairs of the South Pacific.
So, my Foreign Minister who is at the General Assembly of
the United Nations ( and I am bound there in the next couple
of days) has been very anxious that he should participate
on behalf of Australia in so far as Australia's participation
is appropriate in the affairs of this continent. Mr. Morrison
can participate on all the matters of substance which are on
your agenda. In addition, to indicate the interest which
we place in Australia in this representative body we have
brought with us two representatives of the Australian Parliament,
Senator Primmer and Senator Bonner. In Australia we believe
that representative institutions are extraordinarily important.
We are the last to deny that there are very great deficiencies
and shortcomings in Australia's representative institutions.
I could scarcely urge any country in the South Pacific to copy
Australia's political institutions a federal system or a
bicameral system. I don't urge this plan but naturally we still
have the idea that representative government is quite basic if
one is to involve the people in the affairs of government
if government is to be soundly based. We are in population
and also in area a very large country in South Pacific terms.
We therefore are aware that many people might believe us to be
unconcerned or remote or indifferent. We don't want you to
believe that we are indifferent or unconcerned. We have had
experience of very many problems which must concern you. Some
are matters which have arisen only in the last few years.
In the South Pacific the ratio of sea to land is greater than
any other part of the world. Accordingly, there are very many
international matters of navigation and resources which concern
all of us. It is just as important to Australia as it is to
any other country in the South Pacific that there should be
proper international standards set as for the rights of access
by surface or by air or underwater, whether it is for strategic,
political or economic purposes. You are very much aware that
in the South Pacific the law of the sea is quite basic if all
are concerned. There is no difference of interests between
Australia and archipelagos in the south seas. There are also
again many matters in the economic field where our concerns
in Australia may be different in degree but not in time from
those of all the other countries in the South Pacific. All
of us, Australia and all the other countries in the South Pacific,
have been concerned with the price that their products get elsewhere
in the world, the degree to which their products are processesed
in our own countries, the degree to which the products, the
resources of our countries are discovered or developed or marketed
by ourselves or by organisations in which we have a fair share
of the responsibility. And, in these days when inflation
affects so many countries and certainly all the countries with
which the South Pacific countries are trading or with which
they have relations relating to transport and the like, it
is very important that we should all understand the economic
opportunities properly. We want to ensure that even if we depend
on a very few products we can get a fair return from them as
we get a fair share in development.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the deliberations of the South
Pacific Conference are of concern to Australia not just because
we are all geographically so close but also because as far as
the rest of the world is concerned there are very many things
which concern us just as muclin Australia as they concern people
in the South Pacific. My minister, Mr. Morrison, will be
participating in the conference I am happy to say and will be
reporting to me and our other colleagues on the matters you raise
here. Looking over the last 25 or more years, we can take
quite a deal of satisfaction in the way that this very large
tract of the world's surface has come together, by the way
it has developed its appropriate institutions, the institutions
have changed as the needs have changed and it would seem to us
that this conference is the one which you can not only make
wider representation but it is the only comprehensive one and
despite all the political diversions, the differences, you must
confess, have been largely introduced in political terms in the
last 150 years. Despite all this we are coming to see in the
South Pacific how much we have in common and how much the things
which we each individually want to achieve can be more fully and
promptly achieved if we can consult together. Allow me to conclude
by saying how much more our deliberations will be promoted, how
much more harmonious as well as fruitful they will be because
we are meeting in this beautiful hall, on this beautiful island,
in this benine and benevolent regime. Well, I have only the
opportunity with my senior officials, my Treasurer and our wives
to thank you for your hospitality on our way to North America.
On the way back we will be calling into Fiji for the Centenary
of its association with Britain and at Norfolk Island to commemorate
the 200th anniversary of Captain Cook's landing at that then
uninhabited island, so our way between Australia and North America,
the United Nations, new President Ford, re-elected Prime Minister
Trudeau, will be made all the more interesting, we will be
fortified on our way, refreshed on our way back by going to the
islands of the South Pacific, our neighbours. And for those
who are fortunate enough to be spending weeks instead of days
on this island in this arghipelago, on behalf of the Australian
Government I wish you-/ 8HIy a happy but a very fruitful conference
believing that it will mark another big step in our associations
with the people of the South Pacific.