PRESS OFFICE-TRANSCRIPT WEDNESDAY, 27 FEBRUARY, 1980
PRIME MINISTER INTERVIEWED BY RICHARD CARLETON
ON ABC'S " NATIONWIDE"
Clive Hale
First up tonight, Federal Parliament, and in the House of
Representatives the second successive day of uproar over the
Afghanistan question as both sides indulged in acromonious
debate; debate that reached a personal level not seen in
the House in recent years. Reporting from our Canberra studio,
Richard Carleton.
Carleton Labor won yesterday's Parliamentary encounter, 60-40, and today
in my assessment they won hands down. As much as anything,
the Government's error has been tactical. Smarting as the
Government was after yesterday's drubbing, today they sought
to reverse the tide. It was the Government that brought
the Afghanistan issue. back on for debate and they sought to
argue that the Labor Party was undermining efforts to establish
an effective response to the Soviet invasion. But by debating
the issue again so soon, they have merely provided another
opportunity, for a very buoyed opposition and an especially
buoyed Mr. Hayden to play them on their weak spot: the
inconsistency of boycotting the Olympic Games but continuing
with the wool sales. And to Mr. Viner, the Leader of the
Government in the House, who led for the Government, and
his was a very pedestrian performance. Mr. Lynch, the Deputy
Leader of the Liberal Party followed. Mr. Lynch is probably
the Government's poorest debater and he read a very dull speech.
It fell to Treasurer Howard to save even greaLer embarrassment.
His was a stirring effort, and what's more, it was needed.
For Mr. Hayden, yesterday and today, he has put in the best
performancesthat I have seen from him in the twelve years
that I have watched him in the Parliament. He has both his
head and his heart in this issue and it couldn't have come at
a better time for him. He needs now to be seen as an effective
and a strong leader if he is to-carry the day this Friday
when he attempts Federal intervention in the affairs of the
State Branch of his Party in Queensland.
But having said that, Mr. Hayden did decline to appear on
the programme this evening. The butt of the opposition's
attack and the man who has collected the thrown mud, the man
whose integrity has been impuned, is the Prime minister, Mr. Fraser.
Mr. Fraser, I thank you very much for coming on the programme
this evening sir. Could I suggest to you that the Opposition's
attack has been effective largely because they have been able
to sustain, true or otherwise, the emotive line that your wool
from Nareen, your family property, is keeping Russian soldiers
warm in Afghanistan. / 2
-2
Prime Minister
I hope you are not going to promote something that you know,
as you introduced this programme, to be totally and
completely false. It has been promoted by Mr. Hawke. It has
been promoted by Mr. Hayden, but I. thought that the ABC was
meant to be impartial and I did not think that you were
meant to be here to promote something that is, as you know,
totally false.
Carleton It is the opportunity for you to give your story...
Prime Minister
But it has already been said and you know it quite well.
Carleton It was said by you today, I think it was said..
Prime Minister
It. ' had been said by other people on many other occasions.
Carleton Yes, that your wool has not gone to the Soviet Union.
Prime Minister
Now, look, if you want to debate this on a personal basis,
as Mr. Hayden has, that is your entitlement. But at the same
time I would have thought it much better for this whole matter
to be debated on the basis of policy. Your introduction to
this programme, your introduction to yesterday's programme,
is that of an observer who is looking only at the words that
are used. It does not bother to go underneath, the words that are
used in that Parliament,:. to see what is said, to note that
in Mr. Hayden's attack on myself it was the most personal attack
in totality, without one element of fact, without one element
of argument, without one element of substance, and you took
the froth and the bubble without bothering to go the
analysis of what was happening, of what had been said.
Carleton
Let me try that now then sir. Let me try that now.
Prime Minister
You try it, but let's keep on the policy issues..
Carleton
But the hard political fact, let me suggest sir are
Prime Minister
The policy issues I think we will stick on...
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Carleton But the hard political fact I am suggesting to you is that
the opposition is winning this because they are succeeding
in having the mud stick. That the impression, and you
say wrongly and I
Prime Minister
And you are helping, very greatly.
Carleton No. Prime Minister
Oh yes. In the introduction
Carleton Offering you the opportunity to knock it down sir.
Prime Minister
Good, fine. Because your introduction to this programme
yesterday and your introduction of the programme tonight
was helping them to have that mud stick. Your first question
was designed, perhaps, or not designed, I do not know, to have
that mud stick on something which you know to be false. Let's
debate the issues. Let's debate the Olympic boycott and
why that is important. Why the Human Rights Commission
in Poland believes it is important. Why they think that their
people, the Poles, should not go to Moscow for the Olympic
Games because it is a nation that has been struggling for
freedom for 200 years. How many Australians would want to go
to the Olympic Gamnes in Moscow if the Soviets has put 100,000
troops into Papua New Guinea. Wouldn't you like to answer
that question?
Carleton That not for me to answer sir.
Prime Minister
Oh yes it is. You give opinions on a great many things.
You are entitled to give an answer to that question.
Carleton Well, you might like to speak to Sir Talbot Duckinanton about
that. ./ 4
-4
Prime Minister
No. You have given opinions on a great many programmes your
own much, much more political than that. You will not
prejudice your* ABC impartiality by answering that question.
Carleton
My contract is in the wind at the moment.
Prime Minister
I think you might do better by answering the question than
by not answering the question. If they put 100,000 troops
into Indonesia instead of Afghanistan, do you think any
Australian would want to go, would dare to go to Moscow?
Come on, please answer it. Surely.
Carleton I think yes, probably many would go to Moscow, yes.
Prime Minister
If they had put .100,000 Soviet troops into Indonesia, in
an invasion, do you think Australians would still go?
Carl eton
I don't want to get into the position where I-. am just voicing
my ill-informed views on issues like this though sir. But
I mean you go back to the time when
Prime Minister
At least you are gracious enough to say they are ill-informed.
Carleton Well, of course they are sir. I mean I don't have any
access to the information that you have. I mean that is why
you are here. I have asked you -here to hear your views.
Prime Minister
But I am trying to drive home to you that this invasion
of Afghanistan is a serious matter. That this is what the
Government has been talking about. On this programme yesterday,
and in introducing it today, you tried to pick up the froth
and the bubble. But let's get down to the substance of it:
an invasion by the most powerful land army in the world
of a small non-aligned state that could not never have offered
any threat to anyone. Many people have likened what the
Soviets have done to Germany's marching into the Rhineland
in 1936. Then, because France did nothing, because Britain
did nothing, they marched into Austria. Italy marched into
Ethiopia. They marched into Czechoslovakia and ultimately
into Poland and ultimately a World War was joined in which tens
of millions of people died. I really do believe it is time
that the media and the Parliament I make no excuses for the
Parliament because Mr. Hayden has personalised this issue,
Prime Minister ( continued)
whether it is wool or whatever, has sought to personalise
it in a way which is a disgrace to the substance and the
importance of the issue, in v~ hich men's lives, of your age
and of mine and of younger and of older are at stake and are
being killed and dying at this very moment.
Carleton
Mr. Fraser, why should Australians accept your assessment
of Afghanistan and the importance of Afghanistan.
Prime Minister
But it is not my assessment.
Carleton The argument that you put now of the importance of
Afghanistan, when ten years ago sir, in your capacity
then, Minister for Defence, Minister for the Army in previous
governments, you put forward the argument of the domino theory
and that Australia was threatened by the events in Vietnam.
Prime Minister
And do you think that has not been so? Do you think that
what has happened in Vietnam, with the victory of North
Vietnam, then moving 22 divisions into Kampuchea, establishing
a refugee movement that resulted in more people being sent out
of Vietnam than left Germany in all the days of the 1930s, with
the instability that that had the potential for creating in
South East Asia, with the problems in Thailand because of
refugees pouring across that border, to a country that could
ill afford to look after them, another half million refugees
already in Pakistan as a result of Afghanistan, with the
expectation of that rising to a-million -not on my count but
on the count of people who know, the relief authorities, the
United Nations agencies. One of the most remarkable things about
Russian victories, communist victories because that -is what
they are, is their capacity to create refugee movements of vast*
masses of peoples. Really, it is important* that these matters
be treated for what they are. It was not a frivolous question
when I said what would you do about the Olympic Games if
they had marched into Papua.: New Guinea or Indonesia, because
that then brings it closer to us. Closer to an understanding
that a life is a life whether it is here, in Indonesia or in
Afghanistan. Carleton or Vietnam.
Prime Minister
Or Vietnam, yes. The de-stabilising effects, the refugees that
have occurred have been a direct consequence of North Vietnam's
victory. -It was Lionel Bowen, Deputy Leader of the Labor Party,
who said in the Parliament over the last day or two, that
6
Prime Minister ( continued)
unless we get the Russians out of Vietnam, get the
Russians out of Kampuchea, we are going to be in a very
dangerous situation. That is his judgement, support
of the Government's. He did not speak much about Afghanistan.
But what the President of the United States is about, what
the French and the Germans and the British are about is not
making the mistakes that were made between 1936 and 1940, in
the early part of this decade of the 1980s. That really is
a substantial matter. I think that when you put that
alongside the personal attacks and the vituperation that has
come from some people in that Parliament over the last day
or two, trying to undermine theithrust of the Government's
effectiveness and its policies in relation to Afghanistan,
I think it is a tragedy, not only for the Parliament,
but it is a tragedy for Australia.
Carleton I am going to end it. I am going to end also on a domestic
political note sir. Are you conscious that some of your own
backbench, and probably much more importantly, some of your
own Ministers, are have been critical of your performance over
the last couple of days.
Prime Minister
Now, I really think that that is taking personality politics.
Playing Mr. Hayden's game, isn't it?
Carleton I ( inaudible) intended to sir.
Prime Minister
Yes, I know. But I know if anyone wanted to be they would be
critical to me. They wouldn't be critical to you. So you
saying that here and now, it is really playing the Labor
Party's game for them. 000---
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