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ADDRESS BY THE PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA,
MR E. G. WHITLAM,
AT THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, NEW YORK,
MONDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER, 1974
Mr President, In this year in which Australia has established
diplomatic relation~ s with Algeria, it gives me particular
pleasure, as head of the Australian Government, to congratulate
you upon your election as President of this 29th Session of
the General Assembly. The Algerian experience has encompassed
many of the deepest problems facing the world and this world
Organisation today. Sir your nation's experience and your
own ensure distinction and significance to your occupancy of
this high post.
As head of the first Australian social democratic
government since Australia helped to found the United Nations
and to frame its Charter more than a quarter of a century ago,
I re-affirm our loyalty to both. Such pledges are easily
enough given; yet no nation makes them more sincerely, more
earnestly today than Australia.
No country needs more than Australia the fulfilment of
the international objectives of the United Nations to reach
the fulfilment of her own national objectives. There are few
countries in which the paradox is demonstrated with such force
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that true national independence depends upon international
interdependence. There are few nations to which the mirage
of national self-sufficiency can be made so tempting; yet
there are few nations for which that mirage can be so easily
shattered. Australia, fortunate In possession of great
resources, confident in the ability of her own people to
develop those resources, is nevertheless not ashamed to admit
her interdependence with her neighbours and her partners
across the world and her dependence upon them. We are a
people without illusions; we Australians neither falsely
exaggerate our strengths nor fearfully exaggerate our
weaknesses. It is precisely because we make a rational
assessment of our strengths and weaknesses that we recognise
that we depend upon a better international order to preserve
those things we most value about our national independence.
In seeking a better international order, we give primacy to
the United Nations.
It is therefore with growing concern that we witness
what can only be called a drift away from international order
and international co-operation at present occurring in world
affairs. Australia's concern springs not just from the real
difficulties created by recent events but, even more, from the
feeling that there has been a weakening of will, a loss of
momentum in Internationai determination to meet and overcome
those difficulties. Great hopes were born two years ago. The Australian
Government wholeheartedly endorsed the movement towards detente
between the United States and the Soviet Union. We wholeheartedly
supported China's return to her true place in the
family of nations in this Organisation and ' in the worldo We
wholeheartedly endorsed the Paris Agreement to end the war in
Vietnam. We therefore ratified the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty, moved our Chtna Embassy from Taipeh to Peking, and
ended Australia's own military Involvement In Indo-China.
Above all, we have been determined to do all we can -to
ensure that our region and the world should not for a second
time lose the opportunity for a new settlement, a new step
towards peace and progress, in the way that the chance was
thrown away after the war In Korea and after the Geneva
meetings in 1954. Yet we have to acknowledge that the hopes
springing from the remarkable events of 1971 and 1972 are
beginning to sour. There is increasingly a sense of drift, a
sense of events out of control. The task of~ this Assembly
should be to help stop that drift. Our natu,? l preoccupation
with our national problems -and for most of us
they are very great indeed must not lead to a loss of
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international concern and involvement. We cannot turn inwards.
E-en the ,! ost immediate problems of domestic worry such as
inflation which so many of us share, the strongest, the most
highly developed along with the weakest and the least
developed are in essence international problems, for which
there can be no ultimate, no complete national solution
without an international solution. No nation, no group of
nations, no bloc, no alliance, can live alone, can live
entirely to itself in this new world. We are all internationalists
now by necessity. Australia is internationalist
by necessity and by choice. Each of us has our bilateral
arrangements and our regional arrangements. Many, like
Australia, through treaty or trade or tradition, have
honourable alignments and valuable associations.
It is however through this Organisation, its Assembly
and its councils and through the specialised agencies, that
the enduring international settlements must ultimately be
sought and the drift away from international co-operation
must be arrested.
So there must be no loss of nerve, no loss of will
here. If we here lose our nerve, if we here allow that
drift to continue unchecked, we face the breakdown of the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the breakdown of world
economic order, the breakdown of all our high hopes and high
words about closing the gap between the developed and
developing nations and the breakdown of any claims of the
United Nations OrgA~ iisation to be an effective peace-keeper
and peace-maker.
We should all stand guilty of betrayal of our peoples
if we did not act now to stop the drift in these matters0
The special obligations which the might of the superpowers
imposes upon them should not be made an excuse for
indifference or~ Indecision on the part of? the rest of us0 We
continue to urge upon the superpowers the need for them both
to maintain the utmost mutual restraint in their relations
between themselves and towards us. They can, of course,
easily destroy each other; they can also destroy all of us0
!, 4e are entitled to ask them to move forward to a stage of
complete detente where their tremendous power can be used
jointly for the betterment of the whole civilizationo We
are entitled to insist upon restraint In their deployment
of forces overseas, in areas such as the Indian Ocean.
Australia is strongly opposed to the Indian Ocean becoming
a ground for competition, much less confrontation between the
great powers.
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Mutual restraint is also essential to prevent the
excesses and dangers of the nuclear arms race.
Let me recall that those of us who are so far parties
to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
have given the nuclear powers certain rights; they in turn
have accepted certain responsibilities and given guarantees,
as part of a two-way process. We undertook not to develop
nuclear weapons in return for guarantees of protection and
assistance in the development of nuclear knowledge for peace.
Above all, the sponsoring powers undertook to promote and
maintain a world order based upon comprehensive disarmament.
Unless these obligations are sincerely fulfilled, the incentive
abroad and the pressure at home for more and more nations to
get nuclear weapons will increase. A co-operative effort by
all leaders must find effective means of halting the arms race
and preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. There is
nothing more urgent facing any of us today.
Australia there~ ore sees with deepest anxiety the
continuing and new testing of nuclear devices, the prospect
of an ever-increasing number of nat~ ons possessing nuclear
weapons, and an even greater number possessing the capability
of exploding nuclear devices. Where It has been open to
Australia, we have expressed our concern in action before
the International Court of Justice.
All of us face a nightmare world in which as many as
fifteen or twenty nations may possess nuclear weapons by the
early ' 080s. There is time to prevent it, We have perhaps
about a year, two years at the most in which to prevent it.
Now is the time; it may be our last chance.
For our part, the Australian Government pledges that
it will neither develop nor acquire nuclear weapons.
Our first aim must be to strengthen the Non-
Proliferation Treaty and work for Its acceptance everywhere.
Real and rapid progress can best be made through this Treaty.
We should build on what we have. We have not time to start
all over again. Six years after it was concluded and more
than four years after it came Into force, some States have
still to ratify the Treaty, or to make clear their
renunciation of nuclear weapons development. Certainly
we understand the difficulties the Treaty presents to some
nations. We understand their reservations0 We acknowledge
discriminatory aspects of the Treaty as it now stands0We
would hope that the forthcoming Review Conference will remove
some of these difficulties, but the Conference will be more
successful and meaningful if more nation3 ratify the Treaty
and work within its framework to improve it and apply it.
Secondly, we should make a comprehensive treaty to ban
nuclear weapons testing an urgent priority. The treaties
which have been concluded and resolutions which have been
adopted are Important achievements, but they have not gone
far enough towards stopping the nuclear arms race. They are
only steps towards unive-sal and comprehensive agreement on
nuclear weapons testing. We must complete the journey.
Thirdly, we need effective international arrangements
to govern and control ruclear experiments for peaceful
purposes. We all recognise the promise which scientific
collaboration on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy holds
for economic development in the interests of all mankind.
But the world cannot afford the risks which lie in the
prospect where increasing numbers of countries possess
nuclear devices e'-en if they profess to have them for
peaceful purposes only. We cannot shrug off nuclear
explosions which present us with such a threat, particularly
those conducted outside existing safeguards and without
international inspection0 Australia seeks support for an
international arrangement by which all states could gain
access to nuclear explosive services under agreed and secure
international controls for peaceful purposes0 We urge all
nuclear states to co-operate In establishing such a service,
preferably under the auspices of the International Atomic
Energy Agency. I join with the Foreign Minister of Canada in
this call. Another approach to the goal of disarmament worth
serious exploration is the concept of peace zones. They are
of course no substitute for comprehensive disarmament and no
substitute f'or an effective Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Australia, however, takes a particular interest in the
agreements and proposals embodying this concept, because
most of them affect our continent and our region directly.
The Antarctic Treaty, the Indian Ocean peace zone, the ASEAN
declaration, the Treaty of Tlatelolco, and the proposal by
Iran for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East all
move in the right direction. They command Australia's broad
support since they assert the dangers inherent in an
uncontrolled, unregulated use of our planet for the deployment
of nuclear weapons; they seek to limit the development,
emplacement and use of nuclear weapons in the areas and
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environments they cover; they all express growing anxiety
about the spread of nuclear weapons; they all seek paths
towards reducing tensions among the nuclear powers. For the
Australian Government, these initiatives not only represent
ends In themselves but, we believe serve to stimulate
progress on other important measures intended to bring to
fulfilment the hopes of !. nkind to live in security, free
from the threat of nuclear war,
Let me say that Australia's anxiety about the nuclear
arms race does not blind us to the risks to international
peace and security from localised conflicts using conventional
weapons. We, the members of the international community,
stand condemned for our failure so far to find the sense of
responsibility and the means of authority to stop regional
disputes being settled by force. It is equally bad that
some members of the international community have made
possible for profit massive recourse to arms and the means
of waging wars about to start or already begun. A world order
which pcovmits. or which, by default, sanctions the large scale
transfer of weapons from one country to another where the risk
of conflict is high, is gravely at fault and very foolish. It
shortcircults the process of peaceful negotiation and puts
primacy upon settlement of disputes by war, by bloodshed, and
as always happens must always happen in modern war by the
bloodshed of the innocent.
Clearly, we still have far to go before the international
community will agree collectively to forsake the short term
gains on arms sales abroad in return for the longer term but
less tangible benefits that this self-denying ordinance would
confer on the weapons prn~ ucers. Nevertheless, we now ask
that the major weapons producing countries should set an
exo~ mple by imposing the strictest restrictions on the export
of arms abroad to areas where there is a clear risk of conflict.
Recent events have shown that preservation of peace is
more than a matter of arms control. It is also a matter of
keeping the peace when violence threatens or occurs. It is
not enough for members o the United Nations to pay lip service
to the United Nations' peace-keeping role. Individual members
have the duty to provide the material and financial resources
to allow the United Nations to deal with threats to security,
breaches of the peace and acts of aggression.
Australia stands ready to participate in peace-keeping
operations in whatever way would be most useful. Australia is
of course allied by trep-ty with the United States, and we make
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no apologies for it. There is however no area of actual or
potential conflict anywhere in the world where loyalties,
ideology or interests, should make an Australian involvement
in peace-keeping unacceptable or unwelcome. We wish
Australba to be always among the first nations from which
the United Nations would ask for peace-keeping forces; we
shall be among the first~ to respond. We undertake to keep
the Secretary-General regularly informed on the nature and
size of contributions we are able to provide over a given
period. Australia fuirther believes that the importance of
preventive diplomacy must come to be more widely recognised
and accepted and that the ample provisions offered by this
Organisation for peace-keeping and good offices should be
reinvigorated, explored more thoroughly and more thoroughly
exploited. It is time, thern~ ore, to look again at the
hitherto untapped provisions of the United Nations Charter,
to make all that we can of its capacity to provide useful
contributions to such activ,: ties as fact-finding,
conciliation mediation and negotiation.
We here should particularly devote increased attention
to the role of the International Court of Justice. Not enough
nations use the Court. Members of the international community
cannot be compelled to take their cases before the Court but
we should strive to build confidence in its worth, its wisdom,
its worl rbility as one way of rationalising and harmonising
international relations. If the rule of international law
and justice is to prevail, then an international tribunal is
indispensable. The Court's jurisdiction should be widened0
Jurisdiction should become compulsory and universal. New
multilate~ al treaty arrangements like that which will
emerge from the Law of the Sea conference should enforce
compulsory settlement oP disputes, with the International
Court as the final court' 0o' appeal0 By such steps the rule
of law can be established and strengthened in a better world
order. In this difficult, complicated, crowded world we all
are creating for ourselves, the causes of conflict multiply.
Nuclear brinkmanship, ideology, border disputes, race hate,
religious bigotry, national ambitions, foreign exploitation
all provide actual or potential sources of tension, conflict,
bloodshed and war. Yet there remains for the future one of
the oldest of all the causes of war the threat of war for
the possession of resources. Huge population increases, the
revolution of rising expectations, the enormous and often
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wasteful demands our technological civilization makes upon the
world's resources, have increased the pressures on our world
civilization to the very threshold of the tolerable.
. For countries which lack resources the situation has
become critical. The developing countries have been grossly
disadvantaged. Last year's oil crisis brought this sharply
home to all of us developed and developing alike.
It is proper that In this world forum I should state
the Australian Government's attitude to the use and development
of Australia's own very considerable resources. There is no
place in our thinking f'or " economic nationalism" in its crudest
sense. We do, of course, wish to ensure steady markets at
fair prices for what we produce. We recognise the great scope
for increased co-operation between producers of raw materials
and for groups of exporting countries to associate to build a
better fr%-)-ework for orderly and rational development of
production and trade0 As a relatively developed and thriving
nation, which also produces many resources shared by developing
and poorer nations, Australia recognises its duty to cooperate
with such nations in obtaining fair and reasonable
return for our products. And we are co-operating. Equally
however we in Australia accept our responsibility to reassure
countries which depend upon our resources that they shall
have steady, secure access to those resources at fair prices.
We must protect our interests and we shall, but Australia is
not in the business of resources blackmail0 That is the way
to international disaster for producers and users alike0
Let us accept the plain fact that war for resources
or food or markets by any nation or group of nations would,
in modern times, represent the supreme folly0 There is no
war, nuclear or " conventional" by which the victor so-called,
assuming there was one, could conceivably win back by war the
resour0ces used and destroyed in waging it0 If we choose not
to listen to the voice of humanity against war, we might at
least listen to the voice of commonsense and indeed ordinary,
rational self-interest0
As a major food producer, Australia is particularly
interested in the proposals on~ food which President Ford and
Secretary of State Kissinger have made at this session0
Australia undertakes to work constructively and cooperatively
towards implementation of these proposals.
Suggestions such as the establishment of an international
system of grain reserves are thoroughly commendable and
deserve our most serious attention0
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Of all the changes which have occurred in the international
community since World War 11 none has more
profoundly altered the r7ace of the world than the accession
to independence by those peoples and states formerly under
colonial rule. The process is not yet complete, but we look
to a time in the near future when no territory will be
controlled against 4ts choice by a metropolitan power with
whom it has no geographical, social, racial, cultural
affinity. In this regard we particularly welcome recent
decisions of the Government of Portugal.
Australia has acted with determination and vigour to
apply the relevant artic', es of the Charter. Papua New Guinea
became self-governing on I December, 1973. It will become
fully independent as soon as the House of Assembly of Papua
New Guinea decides. We expect this decision soon. Let me
emphasise the decision we await is by the House of Assembly.
The Australian Government made its own decision long ago
we utterly reject a colonial role for Australia. Meanwhile
the Australian Government deals with the Government of Papua
New Guinea in all significant respects as that of a nation
already independent.
There is to me, I must say, a most satisfying symmetry
in the march of events by which Portugal the oldest, and
Australia the newest, of the colonial powers are acting at
the same time towards the liquidation of colonialism. Across
the distance of 400 years the new world in Australia clasps
hands with the old, in ending a false, demeaning, unworthy
power over others.*
The dramatic and welcome progress made towards the
dissolution of the oldest and last of the colonial empires
now enables -che United Nations to direct even more con%
centrated attention upon the twin evil of racism
particularly its posc-colonial manifestations in Southern
Africa. We must be unremitting in the efforts sanctioned
by the Assembly to break the illegal regime in Rhodesia, to
end South Africa's unlawful control over Nambibia and to end
apartheid. We should all make determined efforts to see
that the momentum which launched the Decade for Action to
Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination is not lost. My
Government conscious that Australia's own record is
seriously flawed is determined to remove all forms of
racial discrimination within our own shores, notably now,
as notoriously in the past, against our own Aboriginals.
While racism remains as cruel as any example of man's
inhumanity to man, we should not, however, overlook the
existence of other forms of discrimination which rob men
and women of their right to live in dignity and peace of
mind. Throughout the world political prisoners languish in
jails or are otherwise deprived of their civil liberties.
There are thoroughly unacceptable constraints on the right
of political asylum. Religious and ethnic minorities are
persecuted, workers are denied the protection of ILO
Conventions, women are denied equal opportunities. The
Australian Foreign Minister, Senator Willesee will during
the discussion be putting Australian submissions to express
our views and proposals on these matters.
There has never been a time in human history when the
truth of the one-ness, the indivisibility of humanity, has
been so manifest. It is no longer only a philosophical or
religious proposition but an assertion of sheer reason and
commanding commonsense, All the momentous recent developments
have profound implications for the future conduct of international
relations since they have one common theme the
interdependence of us all. That interdependence is now almost
total. An attempt by any state to bring about political or
economic change in another through unconstitutional,
clandestine, corrupt methods, by assassination or
terrorism, undermines the rule of international law,
encourages adventurism and anarchy, endangers world peace
and turns quite quickly against even the most powerful
nations who would seek to advance their cause by such
methods, The wilful erection of trade barriers by one state or
a group of states without regard to the hardship caused to
others can cr-eate economic dislocation around the world by
curtailing or closing export markets to which their
industries have become geared and on which their foreign
exchange earnings depend.
Refusal to recognise the inalienable rights of all
people to freedom and independence produces tension and
conflict not only between the oppressed and the oppressors
but between them and other nations which become associated
or involved in these just and legitimate struggles.
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Now more than ever, we look to the United Nations.
It has the experience, the stature and the capacity to help
us identify the sources of tension between nations, to
prescribe collective measures to mitigate and eventually
remove the causes of conflict, and to anticipate and prevent
situations developing which have the potential for disturbing
world peace.
Mr President, It is claimed that the world is now short on leadership.
It's truer to say that the nature, complexity and
universality of the problems rushing in upon us render
irrelevant and obsolete that concept of world leadership
whereby a handful of powerful men in charge of the most
powerful nations can chart the course for the rest of us to
follow. So the challenge of the United Nations to provide
a genuine and continuing source of leadership, of hope and
purpose for the world is more urgent, the opportunity more
real, than at any time in the Organlsation's history. In
the response we here make to that challenge, we shall be
judged as nations, as representatives of our nations and
as men and women not by our power or size or wealth, but
by the honesty of our efforts to promote and practice the
principles of the Charter of this United Nations.