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Senate Election 19c. 67 k
NATIONA-L BROADCAST BY THE PRIME MINISTER
( MR HAROLD HCLT) 21ST NOVEMBER, 1967
( Following Is the text of a broadcast to be made by the Prime Minister,
Mr Holt, over the ABC' ' s network at 7. 55 pm ( EST) this evening'
During this S3enate election campaign, we heard from our
opponents some very curious interpretations of the now famous A-. delaide
decision of the F'ederal ALP Conference on Viet Nam. The masters of
Labor policy resolved that a Labor Government would withdraw cur armed
forces if the United States did not consent to terms laid down by the A LP.
it is an interesting fact that the Victorian Stat e Conference
of the ALP in June a month before the Adelaide meeting carried a
resolution very similar to the one later accepted by the Federal Conference.
The Victorian resolution also said and I quote:
" A1t Federal Conference and elsewhere, the A LP policy on
the need to withdraw Australian troops should be stated in an
unambiguous and unequivocal way so as to prevent any
confusion in the public mind."
It is also worth recording that the official Victorian Labor Party newspaper
" Fact" said after the Federal Conference that the Adelaide decisions had
formally underpinned Labor's opposition to the Viet Nam war and had
reiterated the position formerly stated by Mr Arthur Calwell.
The Victorian Labor President, Mr W. Brown, said on August 13
that the Labor Party was moving further to the left. He went on:
" The Conference had strengthened policy on the Viet Nam
war. It attached a meaningful set of objectives to what
basically was and remains a ' troops out' policy."
Mr Brown added these significant words " Possibly we could
now say that it is a policy of ' troops out unless..."'
As for Mr Calwell, he said that the Adelaide decisions showed
there had been no weakening of Labor opposition to the continuation of the
war and to Australia's part in it.
Now the history of this episode shows pretty clearly that the
Adelaide resolution was the brainchild of the Left-Wing Victorian Branch
of the ALP. Not so long ago, the present Leader of the Federal Parliamentary
Labor Party had some unkind things to say about the leftists of the Victorian
ALP. One would have thought that he favoured radical changes In the
Labor Party's policy on Viet Nam. But when the masters of Labor policy
spoke in Adelaide, when they wrote the policy down, the Parliamentary
Leader accepted it. He had to accept it or get out. / 2
-2-
But what happens? Mr Whitlam knows that the policy he must
carry out is repugnant to the Australian people so he pretends that it does
not mean what it says. He makes great play of the phrase " holding
operations". He says vaguely that the war may be over in two years. He
suggests that the United States would give a kindly ear to the suggestions
that it should leave the North Vietnamese free to infiltrate the South and
that the American troops in the South should be content to defend themselves.
This ambiguous attitude of the Opposition Leader is the crux of
this campaign so far as the Viet Nam issue is concerned. It is farcical for
him to assert that the United States would act upon, or even consider, the
terms laid down by the Adelaide ALP Conference. The terms indeed could
formally be described as an ultimatum.
It is not good enough for the Leader of the Opposition to say that
he will answer awkward questions about Labor policy two years from now.
He is asking for votes today and he should tell Australia today what a Labor
Government would do about the orders it has received from the policy-makers
of the ALP.
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