PRIME MINISTERA
FOR MEDIA JANUARY 25 1985
I am concerned at false, misleading and damaging reports
about a letter I sent recently to the Rt. Hon. David
Lange, Prime Minister of New Zealand.
I will not depart from the principles and practice of
this Government by releasing copies of private
communications with foreign Governments.
The facts of the matter are, however, that on
January, after consultation with my colleagues the
Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence, I wrote to Mr
Lange to inform him that I would be visiting the United
States in early February for talks with President Reagan
and senior members of his Administration. I said that I
expected the Americans to want to discuss in some depth
the state of and prospects for the ANZUS Alliance. At
the same time I indicated that it* was important, from
Australia's point of view, that I should explore at
first hand United States thinking on Ithis key matter.
I informed Mr Lange that, in developing views for my
talks in Washington I would value his thoughts on ANZUS
and, in particular, on the longer term management of the
question of ship visits. I stressed that I had no wish
or intention to act in any way as an emissary. But I
knew that the New Zealand and United States Governments
had had a number of bilateral exchanges on the subject,
and that it would be helpful to have his judgement on
where the matter now stood and the prospects of an
agreed outcome.
I noted that Australia, as I knew Mr Lange would
understand, had important and direct interests at stake,
notably the future of the ANZUS Alliance and of two of
Australia's most important bilateral relationships. He
would recall that, when the ALP Government came to power
in 1983, we made it an early objective to initiate a
review of ANZUS, in association with our Treaty
partners. We had firmly concluded from that review that
ANZUS continued to serve fundamental Australian security
interests.
I went on to say that, in the light of this unequivocal
conclusion, the Australian Government would need to
continue to make clear that, whatever New Zealand's
position or policies might be, Australia, as a sovereign
nation which must protect its fundamental security
interests, had its own well-known and clearly expressed
position on visits by United States warships and the
importance of maintaining the neither confirm nor deny
principle. We could not accept as a permanent
arrangement that the ANZUS Alliance had a different
meaning, and entailed different obligations, for
different members.
I said that Australia would be avoiding any public
statements which cast doubt on whether the USA was
applying its policy of neither confirming nor denying
that warships were carrying nuclear weapons in
particular cases and, as New Zealand's Alliance partner,
saw it as important that the New Zealand Government
should do the same.
I indicated that I was leaving Australia on 2 February
for meetings on 6 and 7 February, and I understood that
late in January he and his colleagues would be taking
important decisions on the question of ship visits. if
time constraints permitted, I would greatly welcome any
views he might wish to let me have before I left.
Similarly, I wanted Mr Lange to have an indication of
the very broad lines of my thinking before my meetings
in Washington.
I concluded by saying that I would also be visiting
Brussels and both there and in Washington I planned to
take up trade matters, including issues of concern to
both our countries such as dairy products and progress
in consultations on trade in the Pacific region. I
undertook to pass on to Mr Lange the outcome of my
discussions on my return.
As the-facts I have outlined above indicate, the letter
in no way departs from established Australian policy on
these matters.