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PRIME MINISTER
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SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
OPENING SESSION OF THE
76TH NATIONAL CONGRESS OF THE RSL
. CANBERRA, 2 SEPTEMBER 1991
Your Excellency the Governor-General,
Brigadier Alf Garland, RSL President,
Dr Hewson,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The extraordinary pace of change in the international arena
in recent years reaching a remarkable climax over the past
two weeks will I know make many people wonder whether we
need to rethink our defence policy.
I want to address that issue today, because defence is one
of the fundamentals of our national life, and in periods of'
rapid change; it is more than ever important to make sure we
have got the: fundamentals right. Perhaps the best way to
refresh our sense of those fundamentals is to look back a
bit. In the midst of all this great unfolding of history,
literally before our eyes, it would be easy to lose sight of
the past. But in a very real sense, the extraordinary
events since: 1989 are the culmination of events which began
more than haLlf a century ago events in which this nation
of ours, and your members in particular, played a direct and
memorable part.
We have had some important anniversaries recently, and we
will soon see many more. Next month sees the fiftieth
anniversary of the decision of the Australian Parliament to
hand over responsibility for wartime administration and the
defence of Australia to the Australian Labor Party under the
leadership of John Curtin a responsibility which was
magnificentl~ y discharged.
This year the RSL has participated in the very successful
commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the battles of
Greece and Crete. Over the next few months we will mark the
fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Pacific War, and
remember the terrible events of late 1941 and 1942. 1 know
commemorative events have been planned for Darwin, Singapore
and the Coral Sea, and I am sure there will be others. I
wish them well.
These commemorations will recall, not just for you, but for
younger generations of Australians, the most dangerous days
of Australia's history, when we faced imminent threat of an
invasion which we seemed powerless to resist.
Remembering the Pacific War brings us back to the bedrock of
our national life to the survival of that national life
itself, and to the fundamental purpose of that struggle and
that sacrifice the survival of Australian democracy. It
reminds us what defence policy should be all about that we
should never again find ourselves in the position we were in
between December 1941 and May 1942.
For that reason, my Governent's defence policy is based on
a principle of great simplicity; that the first priority of
the Australian Defence Force must be the defence of
Australia. Our aim is to build a defence force which can
defend Australia without assistance from the combat forces
of other nations. We call that policy self-reliance.
But focusing our defence policy on the defence of Australia
is not only the logical reflection of our historical
experience and national priorities. It also provides the
basis for a practical, workable, efficient defence
structure, and it defines an enduring goal that gives
stability to defence planning. Those points are worth
explaining in a little detail.
First, the priority we give in developing the ADF to the
defence of Australia provides a firm basis to the rest of
our defence planning. Because we know exactly what we are
trying to do, it is easier to work out how to do it.
Having determined that the priority task of the ADF is the
defence of Australia, the Government has developed and
articulated a military strategy of layered defence which
sets out how that job is to be done.
Next, we have set down in detail the defence capabilities we
need to make that military strategy work. By defining a
concrete goal, our defence policy has gone beyond the usual
strategic platitudes. It has defined exactly the
capabilities we need to do the job.
And then we have set about the long job of building those
capabilities. The contracts have been signed and the work
is now being done on the largest defence investment program
in Australia's peacetime history. New ships and submarines;
new airbases and radars; new helicopters and armoured
vehicles. The key to all these decisions is setting priorities. There
will never be enough money to acquire every capability that
might be useful. We need to focus our efforts on the
capabilities which are really critical. And to do that we
need to know exactly what we are trying to achieve; we need
a clear goal. That goal is the defence of Australia.
Third, our defence policy focus on the defence of Australia
is an enduring principle which gives that policy its
stability and durability. The decision to give priority to
the defence of Australia is not the product of a passing
trend. It reflects the fundamental reality that whatever is
happening elsewhere in the world, and however rapidly that
change might take place, the one job the Australian Defence
Force must be able to do is to defend Australia.
This durability is very important. Building a defence force
is a slow business. Our major equipment programs often take
ten years to complete. The equipment itself may last for
thirty years. So the defence structure decisions we make
today will determine the shape of Australia's defence forces
forty years from now. We have a great responsibility to
make sure that our decisions today will suit not just the
world of next year, or even of the year 2000, but of 2030
and beyond.
But having now, I hope, made clear how the principle of the
defence of Australia permeates our defence planning, I want
also to explain the limits of that principle. Because those
limits are also important.
As I have explained, our policy is to build a defence force
to defend Australia, because that is the ADF's principal
role. But that does not mean that we believe the ADF has no
other role. There still lingers in our defence debate the
echos of the old debate between forward defence and fortress
Australia. But that dichotomy has been left far behind by
the development of defence technology, and of the ADF
itself. It might once have been the case that Australian defence
policy had to make a stark choice between defending
Australia and playing a role in Australia's wider region.
That is no longer the case. The capabilities which the
Australian Defence Force has developed and is acquiring for
the defence of Australia also provide powerful capabilities
to play a role in our region of broad strategic interest and
beyond.
This ability to use the capabilities we develop for the
defence of Australia to perform other tasks further afield
has always been part of our defence policy, and was set out
explicitly in the White Paper of 1987. And it is an aspect
of our policy which we have vigorously put into practice.
With the exception of the United States, no country makes
more regular or more substantial military deployments to
South East Asia and the South West Pacific than Australia.
And beyond our own region, no country has been more willing
and more able to respond quickly and appropriately to events
further afield when we believed that Australia's interests
have required it.
I do not need to remind you that this year we accepted the
awesome responsibility of committing Australian forces to
combat for the first time since Vietnam. The RSL knows
better than any group in Australia just what that can mean.
We were proud that the Australian Defence Force had the
capability to make such a rapid, sustained and effective
contribution to the international effort in the Gulf.
We deployed ADF units again to northern Iraq for
humanitarian relief of Kurdish refugees in the aftermath of
the war, and we expect soon to send our men and women to the
Western Sahara in support of the UN settlement of a longstanding
dispute there.
And with last week's successful meeting of the Cambodian
factions in Thailand, we hope that the UN-sponsored
comprehensive settlement in Cambodia, which we have worked
towards for so long, will soon be implemented. Australia
stands ready to contribute a major ADF contingent to help
make that settlement work.
So do not let anyone tell you that a defence force designed
for the defence of Australia is useless for anything else;
that it is just some kind of glorified coast guard. The
facts of recent history simply do not sustain such nonsense.
Our defence policy of self-reliance within a framework of
alliances and regional associations also provides a durable
basis for maintaining and developing our alliance with the
United States formalised in the ANZUS Treaty which was
signed forty years ago yesterday in the new conditions of
the post-Cold War world. I have explained in detail
recently how we see our alliances and regional associations
developing as we work to build regional security, and how we
see the contribution which the ADF can make to that process.
For all these reasons, I believe that precisely because of
the enormous uncertainty in the world today, Australia's
defence policy must continue to focus rigourously on the
defence of Australia as the principal task of the ADF.
But that does not mean that defence policy can stand still..
While we must have a clear and steady goal for our defence
planning, wit must be as flexible as possible about how we
approach it. We must relentlessly seek the most efficient
way of achieving the results we need. We must not fall int~ o
the trap of assuming that the way things have been done in
the past must always be the best way to do them in the
future. Our aim must be to get the most defence we can for
our dollar.
Earlier this year, my Defence Minister Robert Ray announced
the most comprehensive reforms to the management of
Australia's defence forces for many years. The ADF itself
has played at central role in developing these reforms; I
congratulate the CDF, General Gration, and his colleagues
for their far-sighted work.
We said at the time that these reforms have not been
undertaken to find ways to cut the defence budget. They
have been undertaken to find ways of spending the defence
budget better. And we have proved that in last month's
budget, in which defence spending has been maintained in
real terms.
Nor have our reform efforts been limited to the defence
portfolio. Under my very able and genial Minister Ben
Humnphreys, we have been working hard to improve the services
we provide to Australia's veterans. Our key initiative has
been integration, which we believe will give veterans a
better deal. I am pleased that your largest branch, the NSW
branch, has indicated qualified support for integration, and
is looking to the Commonwealth and NSW Governments to
finalise arrangements. We will be delighted to continue to
talk about the issue with other branches, and we hope that
they too can come to see the undoubted advantages of the
steps we are proposing.
Finally I want to close by saying specifically to the
Vietnam Veterans, who have come in recent years to be
remembered properly in this country, how glad we are to see
Long Tan Day becoming increasingly accepted as a day of
remembrance of the Vietnam War, and how much we welcome the
commencement of the Vietnam Memorial when Ben Humnphreys
turns the first sod on Friday.
Mr Chairman, returning to my opening theme, we have the
privilege and challenge of living in the time of the most
momentous change in recent history. We must all be ready to
accept that challenge. I look forward to the opportunity of
working with you as we do precisely that. I wish your
conference well.-