. PRESS OFFICE TRANSCRIPT SUNDAY 30 MARCH 1980
RICHARD COLVILLE -CONVERSATIONS
Question: Prime Minister, a lot of people seem to be concerned about what
might have happened to Australian soldiers as a result of the use
of herbicides in Vietnam. You were Minister for Defence, I believe.
What can you tell us? What is going on? What is the Government doing?
Prime Minister:
First I would just like to remind people why herbicides were used.
In : a very real sense, it was a protective device for Australian
soldiers themselves. In jungle areas and tropical climates of heavy
rainfall;., the Viet Cong were very good at coming in close to positions
using the jungle as cover-for the protection of fixed positions.
If you could knock down the growth for a distance around those
positions, then obviously, your own people are getting earlier
warning, and therefore be more secure. Also, if it were a question
of trying to clear the Viet Cong out of the area, if the jungle again
could be knocked down through the use of defoliants, it made the
operation a less hazardous one for your own troops. I mention that
so that peo] ple will understand the reason for the use of defoliants,
which, jS itself quite responsible and sensible. The Department of
Veterans' Affairs is at the moment assessing the best way in which
these matters should be handled. There is a question of how the
examination ought to be conducted, and I hope very much that matters
can be put before the Government quite shortly in relation to that.
I had spoken to Evan Adermann through the course of last week about
the negotiations and consultations that the Department has already
conducted. But there is obviously going to be a great deal of
work to do to assess the position and make sure that any claims
are properly assessed and to make sure that people who have been
harmed, hurt or damaged as a result of use of defoliants, that
the Government does what it can about it.
You can certainly understand the seriousness of the position,
the tragedy of the position if people have been hurt and if
there are serious family problems as a result of the use of
defoliants. I think that has yet got to be proved, because
that is what the Department of Veterans' Affairs is all about.
It is there to look after the interest of ex-servicemen, and I
believe it has got a very good and a proud record. There is no
country in the world that looks after its ex-servicemen better
than Australia. I think that is one of the proud claims of all
Australians. Question: And if it should be proved that these servicemen were injured as
a result of their service, they would be eligible for compensation?
Prime Minister:
obviously, if it is as a result of war service, then people have
to come within the provisions of the Repatriation Act. There won't
be any question about that. It is a question of how matters can
be properly assessed, and the Department of Repatriation is / 2
2-
Prime Minister:
examining this and what ought to be put to the Government. I am
not giving any guarantee of time, but I hope
something can be put to us in the coming week.
That won't end the matter. There will be a process of examinations
going on after that. It is about how the, matter should be conducted
which the Department is now directing its attention to. I make
no guarantees, but I hope so.
Question: Another subject causing widespread concern, everywhere around the
world, is Afghanistan. We have had some horrifying evidence being
given over the past few days. What kind of information are you
getting from your sources, either to confirm that, back it up
or what?
Prime Minister:
Most of the evidence comes from refugees. One of the remarkable
things about the Soviet Union is that when it becomes involved in
international events, it has a great capacity to cause a massive
flow of refugees in Kampuchea, refugees into Thailand, Afghanistan
refugees into Pakistan. In Pakistan, there are about half a million,
and I think they are expecting the numbers to go to about a million.
Evidence from refugees has indicated that in one case, a village in
Afghanistan, and this was quite some time ago, was virtually
massacred. Some stories say everyone over the age of
about 7. were just lined up and shot. That is because the
people from that district had been showing resistance..
Now, this is the kind of ruthlessness of which we know the
Soviets are capable. When I reported to the Parliament about
this matter several weeks ago, I indicated that the whole world
had recoiled in horror when 400 or 500 people in a Eurpean town
were lined up and shot by the Nazis because o f the murder of a
particular Nazi. The world recoiled in horror because of that.
But two or three times the number have-been murdered in this one
particular extermination of an Afghan village. It seems to me
that people are more inclined to let it go over their shoulder.
There is a feeling around that people don't want to be involved
in Afghanistan, or in the consequences of it. There is no doubt
Afghanis are fighting in many areas, very resolutely. There is
no doubt also. There is no doubt also that the Soviets are using
the armaments of a very sophisticated and modern army. The refugees
are again giving a good deal of evidence to indicate the use of
poison gas, We do know that there are gas units in Afghanistan,
they are* chronic in : the Soviet army, which would certainly have
the capacity to use gas either out of aircraft or through artillery
shells. So it would not be surprising and the circumstantial evidence
is now starting to be quite strong. Here we have the brutal suppression
of a people. Initially, of course, there was horror in the minds of
many Australians when, onthe television screen they saw Soviet tanks
moving forward and Afghans being pushed aside. But, it seems to
recede, to getoff the front pages. It is not on the news services
to the same extent. The horror goes on, but we tend to forget it
and pretend that it is does not happen so it is not on our conscience
quite so much. / 3
-3
Question: In view of all this, how do you feel about Mr Wran's offer to subsidise
New South Wales' athletes to still go on to Moscow?
Prime Minister:
I think this is one of the greatest pieces of political opportunism.
I am not too sure that hypocrisy isn't a more appropriate word.
because Mr Wran knows that what is happening in Afghanistan has been
condemned by 104 nations in the United Nations and the Islamic
conference. He also knows that people who watch the Soviet Union
and who understand the Soviet Union all believe that an effective
boycott would be the best way of getting the message through to
the Soviet government and people.
Mr Hayden also says that. But then the Labor Party here tries
to work against the establishment of that kind of effective boycott,
and I think we are entitled to ask why. If it is the most effective.
way of getting the message through, and if they do condemn the
invasion as they say, why then do they not want the message got
through. Why do they work against an effective boycott?
I think people sometimes believe that the Australian government
is acting in advance of others in this particular issue but that
is not so. In our own part of the world, the governments of Singapore,
Malayasia, the Philippines, I think also Indonesia' certainly
Papua and New Guinea, Fiji and New Zealand all believe that there
ought to be an effective boycott of the Olympic Games.-because that
would get the message through.
There.. was a delegation from the ASEAN countries in my office this
last week. They praised the Australian government for the forthright
way in which it had spoken out on the issue, because they understand
the seriousness of it. They don't want a Soviet Union * spending
$ 3 million a day supporting the invasion of Kampuchea, and they are
much closer to it. I find it very difficult to undertstand those
who suggest that business would go or, as usual. We have got to
get the message through, and we have got to p~ revent the world making
the same tragic mistake as it did in the last of the 1910s.
Question: A lot of people still adhere to the view, and Lord Killanin is one
of them, that sport and politics just shouldn't mix, and you shouldn't
really be interfering in something like this.
Prime Minis-ter:
The Australian government in the past tried to adhere to that point
of view, and in relation to apartheid in sport over South Africa
where there was a racial segregation in relation to sport. If they
claim that they government is involving politics in sport, then it
is very difficult, indeed impossible, for other countries to maintain
the view that sport and politics are separate. But in the Soviet Union
sport is political business. It is run by the state as everything
else is. A large part of the sporting teams are in the army they
are professional sportsters, if you like. But'let me, if I may,
quote something from the Soiet Union itself in a document called
" Soviet Sports Questions and Answers", published in Moscow.
" The view popular in the West that sport is outside politics finds
no support in USSR. This view is untenable. in our country. When
for instance, Soviet representatives called for the expulsion of / 14
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Prime Minister: ( cont.)
South African/ Rhodesian racists from the Olympic movement, this is
of course, a political move. So whenever somebody says that sport
lies outside the framework of political relations, we feel the
remark is not a serious one"
Now, that is how the Soviet union judges it. But in relation to the
Moscow Olympics, Lord ' Killinan has tried to say sport and politics
should be separate. But then, a week after they have taken that viewthe
International Olympic Committee Taiwan was expelled from the
Olympic movement on totally political grounds. Earlier South Africa
had been expelled on totally political grounds.
So, the heads of the bureaucracy of the Olympic movement would appear
to have very plain double standards. If it is to pursue something
like they want'-in other words, the Moscow Olympics they try to
pretend that fiction that sport and politics must be kept separate,
is a real one. But then, when other matters come in a week. later,
they adopt a different principle that spoil these kind of politics
and expel countries from the Olympic movement or states from the
Olympic movement.
I don't'think the International Olympic Committee has done the
Olympic movement any good at all, because its behaviour over this
issue has exposed double standards and a very selective demonstration
of morality.
Question: Prime Minister,! what is your reaction to the demonstration at
Monash University last night?
Prime Minister:
I think it is probably to be expected of Monash. Apart from going in
the door and a couple of people trying to through eggs and tomatoes
from a long distance, they might have hit one or two people, but
it is a real disappointment that they didn't hit Tamie and-myself.
But, I think it is a pity. Universities are meant to be the home
of freedom, of intellectual and academic freedom, freedom of thought.
It ought to be there case where there is tolerance in differing
political views.
Three years, of course, I went to Monash to the opening of a centre
of buildings for the study of handicapped children the Krongold
Centre as it is called. The police were not ready on that occasion.
It was a serious, and could have been in real terms, a dangerous
situation because there was a mob almost out of control.
There is a very strong Liberal group at that university there
has been right -through. They have maintained their beliefs and their
convictions publicly in the university against considerable difficulty.
At an earlier point, I think one or two of them were quite badly beaten
up because of their political conviction. That is one reason why I
like to give them the encouragement and support by appearing at
Monash in particular. They have shown courage in the past by carrying
the Liberal banner, the Liberal ideal, when it has not been popular
or fashionable in the university. . Therefore, because of that
in particular, I have been very happy to support them.
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Prime Minister: ( cont.)
Last night was a celebration of 25 years and was organised very
well. It was a magnificent lecture theatre, and they could make
an awful lot of noise outside, but the lecture theatre is so
well constructed that you can't hear any of it from the inside.
If they think they are disrupting you, you are not ever aware
that they exist. So, the demonstratorswere happy outside and
we were happy doing what we wanted to do.
Question: Do you think demonstrations at Monash against you will become
an institution? It seems that every time you go there there is
one arranged for you.
Prime Minister:
You had better ask me that question in 15 or 20 years time.
Question:
Will you go back there if you are invited?
Prime Minister:
Of course I would.