J
BACKGROUND BRIEFING GIVEN BY THE
PRIME MINISTER, MR JOHN GORTON,
FOR HEADS OF BUREAUX IN THE PRESS
GALLERY, PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA 26 FEBRUARY 1968
PRIME MINISTER : I think you have all had the list, gentlemen, under embargo.
All I propose to do now in relation to this is to give non -attributable
background so that you can write intelligently about this or anything
you want to say about it. So I will answer any queries you have arising
from it, and if I think there are some points which might be covered
that you haven't asked, I'll mention those. But this is for backgroun d.
It is not attributable.
Q. Prime Minister, I notice Mr Philip Lynch's name appears in
the list. He is one of the newest of newcomers to the House. I was
just wondering what special abilities he had that came to your eye?
PM: Well, he is a comparatively young man, but not too young,
and I think he has had a long association with business and staffing
problems. and is a Member of the Association of Directors, or whatever
it is, and a fairly long commercial experience of manpower management
and work in business of various kinds. Also I have heard him make what
seemed to me to be one or two good workmanlike speeches, and I
thought I would like to give him a trial.
Q. Could you tell us, Sir, what has happened to your ideas of
amalgamating certain Departments and streamliring varbus Administrative
functions?
PM: Yes I can. We have been examining very carefully you
are thinking of Social Services -Welfare proposition? we have been
examining very carefully what is involved in what we were initially
thinking of doing, and that is get the benefits side of Health moved across
to Social Services. But there are very great difficulties indeed, there is
no question of that, in moving the benefits of Health across to Social
Services, and it looks almost certain that it would lead to a considerable
duplication of public servants. For one thing, you can mesh in things
like computers throwing up facts of doctors who prescribe a lot more
than they should or make a lot more visits than you can ask them questions,
but there has always been a requirement that judgments on these should
be made by people who are qualified medical people in the Health Department.
All right, you could move all those across, but at some policy-making
levels further up, it looked as if you would have to duplicate them quite
a bit. Then there are problems of what happens to something before it
becomes a benefit. A pharmaceutical benefit is something which costs
an awful lot of money by the time it becomes a benefit but an awful lot
of stuff has gone beforehand before it is declared to be something which
is a benefit. So there were some pretty considerable initial difficulties
PM ( Contd.) there which may possibly, on some more detailed examination be able to
be overcome but which are there now. So I have left Health as it is and I
wanted somebody to really dig in to the Social Services side and come LP
with some ideas on the application of Social Services to try and get away
I don't know if one can from 75 cents or a dollar all round sort of thing.
I will be telling both those Ministers that they will have to work togethersubmissions
from one will need to be examined by the other to see if
there were things they wished to say about it before it came to Cabinet.
What one has in mind is a kind of Commi& W,, Cabinet Ministers
concerned with Social Services who would7 or much more closely than
they do at present so that we can get some kind of integration in this
where it is at all possible.
There is an alternative which no doubt might have occurred to
some of you and that would have been to have the one Minister in charge
of both Health and Social Services, but again, at this stage, the work load
on one Minister in charge of those two Departments, both of which involve
pretty detailed administratioq affd seermto me at this stage to be a bit too
heavy for one man.
Q. You say " at this stage", Sir, does this mean it will be re-examined?
PM: I don't want to give the impression that this will be re-examined
and therefore people are expecting something to happen from it. But clearly
there is a need to get the Social Service things which touch a number of
Departments more closely together. We examined a Ministry of Welfare.
You know, all the others leading up to it. But at this time, again, that
looks like a new Ministry, and more public servants. I would like to have
a year or so just to see exactly how that sort of thing could be done. The
end result what we are aiming for is there but there all sort of problems....
Q. . I notice Mr Barnes is now Minister for External Territories.
Can you explain that in relation to Interior and Northern Territory?
PM: Yes. This is all non -attributable and for background.
I feel that the problems at present in Papua and New Guinea in particular
and in the Northern Territory are problems which are different in kind.
I feel that the end goal, the final conclusion for Papua and New Guinea
is likely to be different from the final conclusion for the Northern
Territory. The N orthern Territory, without question, must be heading
sometime in the future I don't know when towards statehood. There is
no question that it is an integral part of Australia and must be an integral
part of Australia just as much as Queensland is or Western Australia is.
This is by no means necessary in the case of Papua and New Guinea.
It seems likely to me that the development there and I put no time limit
on it would be more towards a kind of self-government, and then at some
time. in the future if that self -governing country wished to enter into some
kind of arrangement with the Australian Government on the basis of self
governent, not on the basis of being told by Australia that it is the sort
of thing it should enter into, then that would take place between the
Governments existing at that time. / 3
3.
Q. This is just a hurrying up of that emphasis, Sir getting
towards selfl-government?
PM: No, it's not, but it is an indication that the two will probably.
be going on different courses.
Q So that the Northern Territory now goes to Interior?
PM: Yes, and we will be continuing to carry out Public Service Board
investigations and discussions with the Administrator up there for some
aspects which in the past in the Northern Territory have been the
responsibility of the Department of Territories but-which might not
necessarily be transferred to the Department of the Interior.
Q. You are thinking of Northern Dev elopment?
PM: Yes, that kInd of thing but national kind of development as
distinct from state kind of development.
Q. Will this mean more public servants, Sir?
PM: I don't think so.
Q. Aboriginal Affairs. Has that become a separate Department?
PM: No. It is going to remain you know there is an Office of
Aboriginal Affairs at the moment. That office will remain with the
Prime Minister's Department:. There won't be set up a Permanent Head
and that sort of thing. But Mr Wentworth will be Minister in Charge
of Aboriginal Welfare and Development in the same way as I was
Minister in Charge of Education and Science when that remained with the
Prime Minister's Department.
Q. Does this mean, Mr Prime Minister, that Mr Wentworth will
work very closely under your eye I mean with Aboriginal Affairs?
PM: Yes, but I would expect to leave most of it to him, except some
really significant policy.
It hesc ubelt ed hat oin a
Ihta s beVe~ aed raxx~ moia sd= big change. in the Head of your
Department, Sir, is that correct?
PM: No. It is not. We are ex amining the work load in the Prime
Minister's Department, whether there should at some stage be a Cabinet
Secretariat as well as the Department, which again, would mean more
public servants, but there is no hurry about that.
Q. Sir, are there going to be any changes in the PM's Department
you mentioned Aboriginal Affairs but is there anything like cultural
affairs or anything like this going into another Department?
PM: I expect they will. You can get a list of those probably from
somebody outside. But there is a thing called the International Radiation
Advisory Committee or something of the kind and that will go to Education and
Science. Therest the Commonwealth Liaison Office which is still there on the
1/ 4
4.
PM ( Contd) paper. It is to do with Australia's liaison with countries of the British
Commonwealth in education. That is already being done by Education.
It will be just wiped-off the paper. Aboriginal Affairs will remain but
will have a Minister in Charge of it. The smaller things I want to get
other people looking after.
Q. What about responsibility for High Commissioner posts
abroad? It is that going to remain technically vested in your Department
or be moved to External Affairs?
PM: Well, I think Australia House is the only one in our Department.
j The other High Commissioner posts abroad they come under External
Affairs now.
Q. I thought they were technicafly under your Department?
PM: Wall, you have thrown me a bit, but I would be surprised. I
think it is only the UK that is still under PM's, and it will stay there.
Q. Prime Minister, who is going to be the Deputy Leader of the
Government in the Senate?
PM: Well, we went on for a long time there without a Deputy
Leader.,
Q. When Senator Anderson is absent, who would be the replacement?
PM: I imagine the next most senior, probably, but this is different
from at this stage designating a Deputy Leader.
Q. You are deliberately not designating one?
PM : No. Not at the moment.
Q. Mr Prime Minister, do you expect this Ministry to last for a
very long period or are you envisaging further changes in the next twelve
months or two years?
PM: -I think it likely that it would continue, up until the next election
anyway. Education in the ACT is to become the responsibility of the
Department of Education, and elements of education in the Northern
Territory are to become the responsili lity of the Education Department.
The Northern Territory is pretty mixed up you know there are mission
schools, aboriginal schools and schools which are part-aboriginal and
part-white and they are run in different ways, but elements of that.
Q. You would take it right out of Interior?
PM: We would take them both out.
Q. It is all the ones that Interior are doing not the ANU?
PM: No. It is the Education ones that Interior is now doing in the
ACT.
Q. This wouldn't involve any alterations in the present arrangements
with New South Wales?
PM: No. It doesn't involve any alteration at all. At the present
moment people are supplied by the Department of New South Wales through
the Department of the Interbr and this could happen through the nex
Department. I think if one wanted to have pilot experiments and that kind
of thing run, it would enable that to happen more easily. And of course the
Department of Education deals with all the other State Governments put
it that way and it seems reasonable that it might deal with it here.
We would probably need to talk to the Council here you know, the local
Council. They might want to have an Education Department officer with
them because at the moment they have an Interior Department man with
them to answer all their questions and give them information, and we
wouldn't want to cut them out in any way from that.
Q. Are you planning a Cabinet, Sir, between now and the meeting
of the House?
PM: Yes. We will have the ordinary Ministry meeting after the
swearing-in, but we will be going on to Cabinet on Wednesday afternoon
and Thursday.
Q. Prime Mlinister, could you tell us what prompted you to promote
Senator Wright to the Ministry? After his record of debating against the
Government?
PM: Well, I wanted to get some significant debating strength on the
front benches of the Senate. I wanted to get legal capacity to present
a legal case and to tear a legal case to pieces on the front benches of the
Senate. We haven't got forceful people there but looking around for
reinforcing a forceful sort of a person, he seemed to fit the bill. And
I think that is the answer. You want somebody there who can fi ght and
who knows t-he law and can cope with legal arguments, and so many of the
discussions in the Senate do turn around legal interpretations and whether
something is against the law of 1863 or something you know, that kind of
thing.
Q. The fact that you have to look around and find somebody 63 years
old to promote to the front bench for the first time in his career seems
to underline the dearth of talent in the Senate, especially on this legalistic
side.
PMVL Well, I don't know of any other lawyers in the Senate on our side.
I can't think of one offhand at the moment. In the next Senate there will be.
Two new ones.
Q. Laught was one.
PM. Keith Laught. Yes, that's right.
Q. Do you think he will rock the boat any more now Senator Wright?
PM: No.
j 6.
Q. Will this be a part of your ruling off the ledger, Sir?
PM: Oh, I hadn ' t thought of it in that way. I think if any of you
had been sitting around and thinking of how you could increase the
debating strength of the front bench you would have come to the same
conclusion, a lot of you.
Q. How do you feel about leaving South Australia and Tasmania
out of the Cabinet? This doesn't concern you?
PM: South Australia hasn't been in the Cabinet for a long, long,
time.
Q. No, but Tasmania was.
PM: Tasmania isn't in the Cabinet, but it is in the Ministry now.
I ' m not leaving South Australia out... . It. hasn't been in.
Q. You don't really feel, apparently, that the Cabinet should reflect
a Federal body, all States should be rep . resented?
PM: I think if that is possible to attain, within the framework of the
other requirements, that would be something to aim for, but I don't think
it is an overriding necessity that this should happen. In the past if
something t hat concerns South Australia has been the subject of
discussion, then Jim Forbes has always said, " I would like to come along
and speak on this, "' and without question, he always has. And, similarly,
that would apply in the case of Tasmania. They get the submissions, they
know what is being talked about.
Q. Will Senator McKellar be in this Health group who have to
exchange submissions for Cabinet?
PM: Yes, I would want him to be, yes.
Q. When will the swearing-in of the new Ministry be, Sir?
PM: Wednesday.
Q. At what time?
PM: Midday.
Q. Sir, to come back to the Northern Territory. I take it that
Interior wouldn't handle the general development I am not talking about
civic development, but the general development. Is this more likely
to be handled by Mr Fairbairn's Department? Is that what you had in
mind?
PM: Yes. This is the objective that one has in mind. There are
different kinds of development and it is not going to be easy to draw a
precise line, but clearly there are some schemes where development
I
PM ( Contd.) taking place say in Queensland would affect development taking place in the
Northern Territory. Now at the present moment in that kind of development,
the Minister for National Development has got to make arrangements with
the Government of Queensland and then make arrangements with the
Department of Territories. That kind of thing. Now this would be an endeavour
to see that the Commonwealth Department who had this overall dey elopment
responsibility would just. have to make arrangements with the one, alority.
Q. Shipping and Transport have gone up into Cabinet, Sir. Does this
presage any development of their activities, Sir in the international sphere?
PM: No, but I felt this that the present Minister for Social Services is
extraordinarily competent. He also had a great deal of work to do as the
Minister assisting the Minister dssisting the Minister for Trade and
Industry which took up a lot of his time, and he went abroad and so on, and
I felt this Department was so significant, it really ought to have a full-time
Minister, a Minister looking after it, and so Mr Sinclair ceased to be the
Minister for Social Services and we had a full-time Minister instead.
Q. ' Mr Prime Minister, you have dropped Mr Howson and Mr Chipp.
Rightly or wrongly, people are going to get the impression Mr Howson
has been dropped for his role in the VIP affair. Could you tell us what
motivated in dropping these two?
PM: Well, I don't think that I could or should embark on saying anything
about people who are not in individuals who are not in or individuals who
are in. I think that would be a bad thing for me to do. I selected the people
I thought could do the job.
Q. You said, Sir, that you thought this could stay there until the
next election? Is this quite irrevocab le you will not want to change?
PM: Oh, no. No, no. It is not irrevocable at all, but I think the
implication of the question was I going to turn this over in a few months'
time sort of thing. It is not that.
Q. You mean there won't be a ruthless change, a great blitz before
the election.?
PM: No. I don't see that happening. I just don't see it.
Q. You said there was no hurry about the changes in the Prime
Minister's Department. Can you give us an outline of your thinking of what
you are after with the policy secretariat? / 8
PM : Well, there has been a very heavy work load on the Head of the
Prime Minister's Department because at the same time he has been the
Secretary to Cabinet. There has been, and are, an awful lot of Cabinet
Meetings, and they go on late, and he has to sit in the room all the time;
he has to prepare for them before~ hand. He has to spend a day afterwards
looking after them. This really leaves with the other you know, with
the policy things that keep coming in to the Prime Minister's Department
a nd they tend to be growing this has, and I think has for some time led
to a sort of feeling that it was not efficient for one man to try and do both.
Q. So you are looking at splitting the functions?
PM: Yes That's right.
Q. You say there is no hurry, so I take it that at the moment MW
Hewitt stays in the Universities Commission?
PM: I just Said there was no hurry, didn't I?
Q. Do yc -Envisage having a full-time Secretary to Cabinet?
PM: I would think this seems to be the kind of thing that is developing,
yes; preparing submissions, indicating to me because they keep coming in
which ones seem suitable for a Cabinet Committee to deal with because I
would I am gding to try I don't know if it is possible but I am going to
try to use Cabinet Committees a lot more instead of full Cabinets because
we were spending a really terrific lot of time, we have been for years, and
it has been growing the amount of time one spends. It may well be possible
that some of that load can be removed by the use of Cabinet Committees.
This is the sort of thing that a Cabinet Secretariat would look into, and it
would serve us, and it would suggest how these things could be done
record the sitting, record the decisions, follow up the decisions after they
are made with the various Departments, this kind of thing.
Q. Would this also mean that junior Ministers might be appointed to
some of these Cabinet Committees? You mentioned difficulties with the
States. Might the same thing also happen where specific s~ bhisiom from
them to Cabinet might mean they would be on a Committee of Cabinet?
So in effect there is a breaking down of a strict 12-man Cabinet?
PM: Well, it would depend. What is in my mind is that Cabinet deals
with the higher policy matters, and a number of things aren't such as
whether you build a building'here or whether you build a building there or
matters of that kind. There are quite a lot of those. As it is now, there
are Committees on which junior Ministers sit the General Administrative
Committee, for example. On this there is a mixture of Cabinet Ministers
and junior Ministers. The Legislation Cominittee is a :. mixture of junior
and senior. That kind of thing might be able to be ex'ended, or we get
something of the Social Services sort of Committee Zh the Ministers
concerned with myself for a nominee, and we go through it. After that it is
possible it might go to a full Cabinet, but that confines discussion for a start.
Q. on the machinery of this, Sir, does this mean the Permanent
H-ead of the Department the way you are thinking atr the moment
wouldn't be Secretary to Cabinet and wouldn't attend Cabinet meetings,
but you* would have a separate Cabinet Secretariat
PM: Well, these are the things we are working out. We are
discussing them at the moment. There are problems. arising....
Q. Sir, is there any particular reason for switching tourism to
go with the Work portfolio?
PM: No, but I thought Senator Wright does come from a State in.
which tourism bulks very largely. Of course it does in Queensland too,
but Tasmania..
Q. Mr Bury seems to have dropped down he's No. 9.
PM: Well he was No. 10 or No. 11 before.
Q. Sir, could you tell us about the " Voyager" report. IHas Cabinet
had a look at it yet or will it look at it this week? Will it look at
Captain Robertson's position
PM: We must discuss it this week. Yes.
Q. Will the question of the payment of compensation to Captain
Robertson be considered by Cabinet? should
PM: I think the report will go to Cabinet and we WM wait until
Cabinet has considered
Q. Can we have that bit on the record, Sir?
PM: What?
Q. That it will go up to Cabinet?
PM:. Yes.
Q. This is on Wednesday afternoon?
PM: Yes, or Thursday.
Q. When is the debate likely to be in the House, Sir? There will
be a debate?
PM: Oh, we will table the report in the House. I hadn't thought
whether we would initiate a debate or we would leave it to the Opposition
to initiate a debate on it. were
Q. At the same time as you me looking at the possibility of
amalgamating the Health group of Departments, did you look at the
Defence group? / 1l
PM: No, I didn't. I know a lot of people think they should be
amalgamated. I have heard it argued " Look at what Mr McNamara
couild do over in the United States as a strong Secretary of Defence" but
I think we have got to remember that they also have a Secretary of the
Navy and a Secretary of the Army and a Secretary of the Air Force under
Mr McNamara as a strong Secretary of Defence It is the same set-up.
People point to is as if it were a different one.
Q. What is the chance of integration as in Canada, Sir?
PM: In Canada they have had integration. Well some people like
it and some people don't. In England, they set up the Defence thing
this is not attributable; entirely off the record it seems to have
resulted mostly in a very considerable increase in the number of civilian
public servants and very little else.
The course it seems to me one follows here becan~
if there is just one Minister for Defence,. I think an awful lot o~ le sMR
are not going to be made by Ministers, they are going to be made by
civil servants. They must be. Nobody would be capable of doing otherwise.
But there are things through the three Services which can be integrated. with
advantage. Mddical services is one that springs to mind. Certain, but
not all, methods of supply; intelligence. There are a number of things
which have grown up separately in Departments which could be integrated,
but I am not enamoured of the idea of wiping out Service Ministers. I know
there are an awful lot of them there, but there is an awful lot of money
bei ng spent too. And it is being spent in a way involving constant decisions.
Social Services, for example, spends a great deal of money, but by and
large it is according to the book, with a discretion not necessarily to go
along with the book. You know pension rates are set, and whether a
chap is competent or not to get it is set. It is more of a mo uting thing.
So there it is. No, I didn't look closely at that.
Q. So as long as you are Prime Minister, then Sir
PM: Oh, come off it. I was asked did I look at it, and I didn't it.
I have expressed a sort of approach to it but I am not to be regarded as
saying as long as I am Prime Minister something is immutable....
Q. You gave a pretty good argument why they should stay as they are.
PM: Well, somebody might come up with a better argument as to why
they shouldn't. I can't fore see that.
Q. Did you have a look at self-government for the Post Office, Sir?
PM! Well that's not down here anywhere.. I think no comment on
that one.
Q. Sir, could yoL~ ust clarify one thing more in relation to the
" Voyager". Cabinet on Thursday will look at the report or will look at the
report in relation to any injustice that may have been done to Captain
Robertson?
PM: At this stage, I am just saying that the report is here. I haven't
discussed it, any aspect of it with my colleagues at all, but it will be
before us and the whole report will be discussed. I can't say anything
even non-attributable or off the record which would tend to bind somebody
when I haven't spoken to them.
Q. Coming back to the new Army Minister, Sir, you don't feel that
the Army fighting in Viet Nam requires a more experienced Minister
than a total newcomer?
PM: Well, that is something that was in my own mind, or that I have
turned over in my own mind. But I think a Minister in regard to any
sort of military operations . depends on hislaffi res, and the military
advisers are there. I have considered it but I can ' t see any way in
which the effectiveness or effic iency of the Army would be hurt by this.
Q. Sir, will Mr Howson and Mr Chipp go to the back benches?
Are they going to resign either one of them, or anything like this?
PM: They will be private Members of Parliament.
Q. There is no suggestion of, oxerseas diplomatic appointments?
PM: Not now
( Interjection Not in the near future!)
PM: No'
Q. One name not on the list is Mr Erwin's. Anything contemplated
at all for him?
PM: He's the Chief Whip.
Q. Will there be a Whip appointed in the Senate?
PM: The Whip is always elected in the Senate.
MR EGGLETON Except for that one small point made, everything was not
for attribution today.
Q. We Cl quote the PM as saing Cabinet will discuss the " Voyager"
report andill not anticipate wherher. the question of compensation for
Captain Robertson will arise?
MR EGGLETON. Yes.
Vi