NEW ZEfL1ND TOUR 1967
RECEPTION GIVEN 3Y TiHE CAFTERURY
CHAMIJER OF COIMERCE IN HONOUR OF
THE PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA, i,
M IHIR. O LD HOLT
CHRI2TC.. URCH, NEW Z'ALATD
4TH FEBRUARY, 1967
Text of Speech by Mr. Holt
Mr. Smith Prime Minister, Your Excellencies, Mr.
Mayor, Distinguishes Juests, Ladies and Jentlemen:
I hope thit Mr. Smith will not get too far away from
me because I may need an interpreter from what he has been
telling me. However I found at Riccarton this afternoon that
they understood the language of my money and I have since
suspected that this was a conspiracy coo ed up by Keith Holyoake
who had been presented to me as a keen judge of equine form, witfi
the Canterbury Jockey Club in order to redress to some modest
degree at any rate, the gap in your balance of payments. I can
assure you that since I arrived in this country the economic position
of Few Lealand has improved appreciably: in fact, I have a little
problem to sort out o settlement of an obligation to the Chairman
of the Club ard my own High Commissioner as resources dwindled as
the afternoon went on. Bit this very happy * athering is
redressing the balance of the day for me. I began most
auspiciously in that, havin h'id the sort of weaher that one
expects in ! ellington, I cuame hopefully to the South. I was not
aware, frankly, Lr. Sith, thAt as makin a little history in
doing so, and in coming with my charmin wife, my decorative wife,
who as you see is my own secret weapon as I was hus able to
describe 1Madam Ky, out it is very grtifying to le-trn that I am
the first Australian Prime Minister to have visited the South.
Right Hon. Keith Holyoake ( inaudible).
Right Hon. Harold Holt Well, I was coming to that. You see,
we have in Can. erra a distinui shed representative of your
country. . e also h' ve a distinguished representative of the
United States. You Iknow your own representative very well
Luke Hazlett. The American, Ed Clrk, may not os so well mknown
to you, but Ed comes from Texas, and ie ha-ive always argued that
Ed was a Texan first an American second and an AustrAlian third.
Now Luke, I think, is a mainlander of tAe South first, a New
Zealander second, and an Australian third. If Keith Holyoake will
only leave him with us a little longer I might be aule to r. iove him
up in the placinks. It is for us a deliyhtful prospect to have this time
with you. It is a very long ime ago although in retrospect it
does not seem so long this is one ot the oenalties of the aging
process, tht the years seem to gallop as you get older but it
is 16 years since I w. ts first in your country, and havin. r carried
out the duties for which I was sent here by my JovernmenY as the
Head of the Australian Delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary
Conference, I was given the opportunity by your Government to see
something of the economy and the beauties othe Forth of New
6ealand: and so, when the arrangements were . eing made for this
visit I said " Now, I have read a lot and heard a lot about te'.
spleniid grandeur and beauty of the South of Few Z ealand.
ellington is a ' must' thit's where we conduct the official
business but I must see something of the South", and so here we
are, and the larger part of our journeyings through New Zealand / 2
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will be carried out in this very beautiful southern part of your
country. Je are. looking forward to that very much and delighted
to find that -the weather is being kind to us.
Now, Lir. Smith one of the agreeable surprises of the
day and I have referred already to some of the disagreeable
surprises: I don't suppose there's a Form Juide attached to the
back of the document you have presented to me and as for the other
gift which I certainly appreciate and regard is an honour and a
compliment: I don't quite know what the perquisites are attached
to it, but my wife, eing a realist as women generally are and
naturally cautious as most women proved to be, said Does this
mean that we have to get married again?" I would like elaboration
on that point from you before this function concludes. But this
gathering was, as I say, a very agreeaole surprise. W'; hen I found
had oeen invited to come alorn and talk to the Chamber of
Commerce, or meet the Chamber of Commerce, I had a picture in my
mind of a sort of 3oard Room and a table in which a lot of rather
stuffy characters including myself sat round together and
discussed the state of the world and the Nation, and there it was
with suitable lubrication, of course, as befits these occasions,
but I found that I came into what apeared, on the surface anyhow,
to ue a very convivial gathering, and if I can only stop myself
in time we will all be aule to oe convivial a'ain together. That
is not easy, as some of my colleagues will tell you. Jut in my
own country we have, I think, worked out a very satisfactory
relationship with Organisations such as your own. As a Jovernment
and it is part of our philosophy of Jovernment we believe that
the good of the Nation will be cest advanced if there is teamwork
between those who have the responsibility of Government and those
who conduct the Organisations representative of great sections of
Industry whether it is manufacturers
Right Hon. Keith Holyoake ( inaudible).
Right Hon. Harold Holt IKeoiwt, h , you hve enjoyed not only
a very handsome election win, but I Inow how well you are regarded
by Industry and Commerce in your own country. Jut in mind, we
have worked this out iappily together. It was not al. vays a happy
situation, out the machinery we have evolved developed out of some
of the economic problems we had early in the 1960' s, and we felt
that in order to ensure that the " overnment was acting in the
knowledge of the views held by Industry, we do arrange to meet
representative roups of Industr on two set occasions in the year
before the first Session of the Parliament, and before the dudet
Session of the Parliament, and Chambers of ! Manufacturers, Chamuers
of Commerce, representatives of the Banks, of the primary producer
organisations, come along and get into discussion with us. '. e
invite the trade unions, too and they have preferred to meet us
separately rather than with the others, ' rd at least on those two
periods in the year we are told quite frankly and in the presence
of each other and this Keith, I assure you has proved an advantage,
because we had found that there w-is a disposition for the
manufacturer to put his story quite vehemently to us and the
representative of the primary industries to put his story quite
vehemently to us, separately, not in the presence of each oth r, but
it is amazing how the process of sitting around together and knowing
that there was a critical voice ready to pick up aything that might
seem an exaggerated view or an unreasonably presented view of
economic circumstances or of tariff policies, and matters of that
sort, has produced a much more useful concensus of thought inside
the representative organisations, and I have been told hat by some
of their spokesmen that this was the greatest value, really, that
they have got out of these gatherings that they have heard the
other fellow's point of view and they have been aole to take that
into account in their own planning. So I just say in passing that
we value the Organisations representative of Industry, of Commerce,
of Primary Production, of our financial institutions, and we confer
regularly with them, and I am sure that out of this teamwork of a
relative v informal kind we have had more realistic and more
effective national policies. / 3
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But I wasn't here today just to speak on those matters.
That strikes one again most forcibly coming to this country is
that however much we may speak of how like each other we are
how many things we have in common, our joint membership of that
great Ahzac tradition which has meant so much to the people of
ooth countries with Anzac Day the most solemn day of commemoration
in the national calendar it is only when you get amongst the
people of the other country that it comes home t you with full
impact just how alike you are in your thinking perhans not
entirely in your speech, althoughwe do not detect these things
this may oe more apnarent to you but really an Australian coming to
New iealand, or a Iew Zealander coming to Australia, finds himself at
home. I have been struck even in this gathering here this evening
with the number of people who have come from Australia, and I have in
Australia many friends who have come to settle and to work with us
in our country. Some of our most distinguished men Sir Frederick
;. hite, Sir Douglas Copland, and there are scores of them that if
time permitted one could mention. And it is only when this impact
hits you tl; ai: you start thinking it out. You know, we are closer
in Canberra to you than we are to our own people in Perth and the
people of Perth, although they are with us on the mainland, there
is a great area of desert in patches oetween us nd them: between
us and you there is a great area of sea, uut we are closer physically
in point of time, in point of journeying. And now that I have
discovered this, as I should have discovered it lone ago, I am going
to see to it that my own visits and those of my M inisters are more
frequent. I hope those of your Frime Minister and of his colleagues
will be more frequent. As I said at our luncheon yesterday, to give
some evidence of our desire to brin. our relations closer and to
work more closely together on matters of mutual concern, ' we do
provide that any of our Parliamentari. ns are free to go and visit
few Zealand at our Jovernment's expense, because w'e believe that this
is of value to us, and we hope that it will be of value to you.
Now r. Smith, you spoke of the opportunities the challenges,
that we have to ether in relation to the regions to the north of our
countries. I suppose in my own there are some parts of Australia,
perhaps many Australians, who are more acutely conscious of this
by the mere circumstance of geography: we are right close within
lying distance, minutes almost, o a people 100,000,000 strong
in Indonesia restless, with a revolutionary philosophy, but with
great resources which in time we hope will be effectively develoned.
I can illustrate for you the feeling of some of our people when I
say that it is literally closer from Darw. in to Saigon than it is, say,
from Brisuane to Perth, and we are vry conscious, and become
increasingly so as events move more dynamically in those parts of
the world, of our involvement geogrphically economically, from
the security point of view and in a variety of other ways, and I
know that your Prime Linister is very conscious of this. Je were
together at Manilh. . e subscribed together to the Declaration and
the joals of Freedom in M. arnila, and we believe that our two countries
have the opportunity oy virtue of our economic capacities, by the
standards we have been aule to build in our two countries, by the
warmth of friendship which exists, radiating out to us from them to
exercise an influence, to be of some help, and, small though we
are to have a significant place in the scheme of things not onl
in this area, but towards the peace and proress of the -world. And
because we have the stimulation : and inspiraion of those goals,
there is a warmth and strength in our partnership which derives not
merely from our close kinship, uut a feeling that we have a destiny
to share together in the years which lie ahead. I hope that my own
visit here will help to promote those oo, ctives and will be tangiole
evidence that there is a warmth of friendship and of good will in my
own country for yours, that there is a resolve that our two countries
shall work together in harmony and close co-operation for the
objectives that we have in common.
Thank you very much from M'rs. Holt and myself for this very
warm and friendly welcome you have given us here in Christchurch
this evening.