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FOUR C ORNERS INTERVIEW WITH THE PRIME MINISTER.
THE RIGHT HON. J. G6 G'ORTON
Reporters: John Temple
Michael Willosoe
John Penlington
TEMPLE: Good evening. This last edition of Four
Corners for 1968 is coming from Canberra. An interview with the
Prime Minister, the Right Hon. J. G. Gorton, looking back on his
first year of office. With me are John Penlington and Michael
Will see, Prime Minister, since you camo to office
there have been some quite dramatic changes in the strategic
situation in the area Britain's accelerated withdrawal from
east of Suez, America's scale down in Vietnam and apparent
reluctance to become too involved in future in Asia,~ As a result
of these, how much more vulnerable is Australia?
PRIM4E MINISTER:* Well, I don't think Australia is any more
vulnerable at all, if you're talking in the terms of an invasion
or a likely incursion across the borders of Australia by some
hostile power. I believe without question that the A. N. Z. U.. S.
Treaty covers Australia and New Zealand and we have ourselves
increased our own capacity to defend ourselves. So if that is
the sense in which one is talking I believe we are no more
vulnerable at all. But nevertheless, it would be true to say
that Britain's accelerated withdrawal and the debate going on
in the United States as to the extent of involvement and the kind
of involvement that country should have in South-East Asia, would
have created conditions there less stable than before these things
happened. QUJESTION: Could I ask you what Australia is going to
do in this less stable situation? At your press conference
2-
this week the general assumption seems to be that Australia will
continue to have a role in regional defence including troopq
stationed abroad. Is this a fair assumption?
PRIME MINISTER: What I said at the press conference was
that the Government had taken what I regard as significant decisions
enabling the military advisers of the Government and Defence
Department to plan the sort of advice that they will give us. We
have told them the capabilities we would like our forces to be able
to fulfil. They can then advise on the composition of the forces
to fulfil those capabilities and the kind of arms which would be
provided and do their planning in that way. That is one thing
and the decisions needed to be taken on that. That should be
distinguished from taking at this stage decisions not as to
composition of the forces but as to disposition of the forces.
Not as to capability of the forces but as to the deployment of
the forces at some time in the future. They are two different
things. QUETION: Prime Minister, ltd like to ask why it has
taken Cabinet so long to reach this latest decision?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, as you said, or as you said, sir,
we were confronted with a comparatively new situation in,
particularly, the aroa to our own near north. We knew, of
course, that Britain was intending to withdraw but the quite
significant acceleration of her withdrawal presented problems
which came before us sooner than * they would otherwise have been
thought to be coming before us. And this required a good deal
of study and a good deal of advice and a good deal of discussion
by the Defence Committee before advice came to Canberra.
QUESTION: Now, your critics have attacked you
because of the delay but has the Australian Government suffered
or made any losses because of this delay?
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PRIME MINISTER: I 4ontt believe they have. You see, we
have engaged in Five Power talks as you know in the area directly
to our north as to what is to happen up until the time that the
British withdrawal is completed. Those talks have been going on
and those countries know our views and their own views and I've
already announced that in principle we propose to keep in that
area forces subject to a few details being cleaned up.
QUESTION: Are you aware of any strains in Australian-
Malaysian or Australian-Singapore relations as a result of the
delay? PRIME MINISTER: I'm not aware of any.
QUESTION: We have heard reports of certainly the
Singapore Government pressing your Government for a decision.
Have such measures been taken?
PRIME MINISTER: I know of no such strains or no such
pressing coming from Lee Kuan Yew to myself.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, you said this week that
it wasn't a choice between Fortress Australia and sticking all
our troops in Asia. But didntt you start the speculation about
Fortress Australia and add to it by some of your statements
through the year?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't know when I can be quoted as
having used the words Fortress Australia but with that rider
let's accept what you've said. What I have been saying is that
in this new situation there are a great number of possibilities,
when we know when this acceleration was going to take place,
there were a great number of alternate possibilities and all of
them needed to be looked at. But Pbrtress Australia is not I
think a phrase I've used, and the connotation of it is not one
that I would support. The connotation of Fortress Australia is
the idea that everybody goes back into Australia, turns their
back on everything outside Australia, draws a line around it and
says, we're inside this line and we're not interested at all what
happens outside it, we just stay here in a fortress. This is a
proposition, in fact, that has been put forward by some opposition
spokesmen, but that is not at all the same thing as, for example,
and I'm speaking of possibilities again, the role that Britain
took, say, during the Napoleonicli~ ars when she was in a sense
fortress-ridden but occupied on the Continent.
QUESTION: These are extremes. I think you put it
this week as" blc and white!.
PRI14E MINISTER: Yes.
QUESTION: But I think a lot of commentators have
taken it as meaning an accent on one or the other and I come back
to this point that you were the person who started saying that
we have to reconsider this forward defence concept and I think
you wore even quoted as using the term ' Foortress Australia' at
the Government Partied meeting.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don't think I've ever used the
term in any public meeting and I won't comment on what happens
inside Party meetings. So there are a number of possibilities
to be examined. I think you're not quite right to say the
commentators have on the whole put an accent on one or the other.
Some of them have. But I think some of them have tended to say
it's either all one thing or all the other thing. And that I
think was quite wrong.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, do you think in fact that
taking the defence situation at the beginning of the year and now
as best we can read it; would you agree there's no major policy
change? PRIME MINISTER: Are you talking of defence situations
from the point of view of the hardware that's supplied to the
forces?
QUESTION: No, I think basically deployment
philosophy. PRIME MVINISTER: Well, the deployment of the f orces up until
1971, subject to what I've said in Parliament in announcing it,
is clearly a continuation of what we did before. A continuation
up until the end of 1971 so in that sense there would be no need
to change.
QUESTION: Prime Minister,, you've said just recently
that we have to face the fact that we've entered a new era and that
we must build up our defences. Does that mean that we can
reasonably expect that conscription will be maintained?
PRIME MINISTER: I think if we are to keep regular forces
of the size that we should keep it will be necessary to have a
form of national service in order to keep them up to that level.
QUESTION: Now, another comment of yours earlier this
year that may have given us a clue as to what you were feeling
about that, you said that you'd like Australia to have " a
citizen army ready to go at a moment's notice as the Israelis
were -abl~ e to go at a moment's notice into action". Now, what
did you have in mind that would be different to the sort of
citizen army that we have at present?
PRIME MINISTER: I think what one had in mind was a better
citizen army, a better equipped citizen army, a better trained
citizen army, C. MF., than we have had at present. We have
throughout our military history, in fact up until recently when
we had greater regular forces, we have been dependent on a
citizen army and calling it together in times of emergency and
then training it for some time before it can go into action. One
of the possibilities again and one of the things that needs to
be examined is a bettering and a better-equipping and a bettertraining
of the citizen army so that we don't have to have that
long delay should it ever be needed.
6
QUESTION: And a bigger C. 14. F.?
PRIME MINISTER: I'd like to wait for the direct military
advice of our military advisers on this before I answer that.
QUESTION: Is it probable that conscription or at least
some form of national service would be enlarged perhaps to the
point of making it universal?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't think that we would need to enlarge
it to the point of making it universal. We did once, you know,
make it universal for -a six mronthis period of training, and I
think the armed forces got very little out of it and it did
disrupt a whole lot of civilian activity and development of
Australia. What is needod is a period of time for a national
serviceman to serve which will enable him, first of all, to be
properly trained and then for the armed forces to get the advantage
of that training for the rest of the time during which he is
serving. Now, if that wore to be applied universally, I think it
would be bad for the other requirements that Australia has for
its young men to build Australia.
QUESTION: Could we turn quickly now, sir, to Vietnam.
In June this year, at the National Press Club in fact here in
Canberra, you said that the military objective of obtaining
political freedom for the South Vietnamese poo~ le could be
attained. Do you still believe that?
PRIME MINISTER:-Well, I suppose that would depend on the
outcome of the negotiations going on now in Paris. If the
outcome of those negotiations is that the South Vietnamese
people do get political freedom then I think it should be clear
that that political freedom has been achieved only because there
was military opposition to aggression.
QUESTION: You've also said that the only way the
war could be lost was diplomatically. Do you see dangers
7
therefore in attempts to reach a diplomatic solution?
PRIME MINISTER: I see no danger in attempts to reach a
diplomatic solution at all.
QUESTION: The United States has taken some dramatic
steps over Vietnam specifically during your term of office, hasn't
it? The bombing halt for a start, and then the start of the
Paris talks, and looking back over the things that have happened
in the twelve months, is the Australian Government completely
satisfied with American policies?
PRIME MINISTER: American policies in relation to the bombing
halt and the bringing about of talks in Paris?
go Yes.
PRIME MINISTER: We have endorsed what tho United States
Government has done on both occasions. Tho first occasion was an
attempt to show good faith and to bring people to a negotiating
table and to seek to de-escalate the actual war as President
Johnson said. This had no great success with North Vietnam.
But the second decision was based on the Americans' belief that
should that second decision be taken then proper peace talks would
begin because there had been no proper* peace talks until that
stage. All the talks were concerned with whether bombing should
stop on North Vietnam. Their belief that proper peace talks
would take place and that they had good reason to beliove that
the scale of fighting would drop during the period of those
peace talks, and they having that belief and certainly the talks
having begun, we can only do as I indicated in the House myself,
hope that they'll reach a successful conclusion.
QUESTION: You have indicated some discontent on both
those occasions though, haven't you, Prime Minister?
-8
PRIME MINISTER: I think what I have done is to indicate
that it is not certain by any means that a peaceful solution will
be attained at the negotiation table merely because. people are
sitting down at a negotiating table. One hopes there will. There
is no certainty that it will. I mean, as I think you used at the
time, injected a note of caution rather than a note of discontent.
QUESTION: Did you go along with the American policy
of putting pressure on the South Vietnamese Government to attend
the peace talks?
SPRIME MINISTER: Why, we ourselves approached the South
Vietnamese and gave them our advice that we thought it was in their
interest to go and that this of course was also announced in the
House. QUESTION: Now, Prime Minister, weld like, if we may,
0-4Ltoto turn to domestic issues. And one of the most sensitive is the
question of foreign ownership of Australian resources. It's an
(. I2.6area in which youtve personally intervened on a number of
occasions. Why has it been necossary for you to intervene?
UPRIME MINISTER: Well, the only occasion on which I intervened
directly was in the case of the M. L. C. and one was able to
do that because the M. L. C. was incorporated in the Australian
Capital Territory, and one had a constitutional power to do it.
On the other occasion of which you're thinking, I believe, that
is the occasion when we asked the Stock Exchanges to continue
trading in Australian company shares even though the shareholders
of those companies may have sought to protect themselves against
being taken over. That we believed was necessary and when I
say we, the Government believed it was necessary. To prevent
the sort of market raids which have been going on, on good
efficient well-established companies or which was anticipated
might take place on such companies.
9r
QUESTION: I think the critics have warned, Prime
Minister, that you may frighten off foreign capital. Have you
had any indications from foreign investors that they could be
nervous? PRIME~ MINISTER:, Well, certainly the capital inflow up until
this stage from abroad has given no indication of dropping off and
there are obvious reasons for that. But I think that what we
need to have in our minds in discussing this are two things:
first development capital, capital coming into Australia in order
to develop some new industry, some now mine, in order to build.
This we want and I see no indicat~ ion of nervousness. We would
wish to have some Australian participation in such new development.
We would not want debenture capital to be raised inside
Australia for some overseas company development in Australia.
That is one aspect. On the other aspect, that of taking over
established Australian companies, there are, as I said yesterday,
ins tanzces when this could be of advantage but there are also
instances when it could be of considerable disadvantage, and we
wish at this stage to try and stop it. Or try and help people
stop it.
QUESTION: You don't see any nervousness here for
development capital; apparently Charles Court, the Liberal
Minister in W. A. for Industrial Dovelopment, does. He said
this week that your intervention had embarrassed the W. A.
Government and had caused doubts In the minds of overseas
investors. PRIME MINISTER: Ican only state my own belief and that is
that overseas investors will come to Australia if they see a
stable government, which they do see, and if they see a proper
opportunity to profit on the funds which they are willing to
invest in Australia. And those are the two things I think they
make their judgement on.
a. 10
QUESTION: Prime Minister, do you want more power-to
control or curb foreign investment?
PRIME MINISTER: To control or curb it. I think that it
would be good if the Attorney-Generals' Committee could reach
agreement on uniform legislation so that nominees who bought up
more than a certain percentage of a company should have to disclose
who in fact the beneficiaries were, I think that would be
a good step and I suppose that would fall within the category
ofgreater power to curb takeovers. I think it would beif we
could work it out with the States, good to have a selective way
of protecting Australian companies from being taken over and
their assets dissipated and things of that kind. Yes, I think
that would be good.
QUESTION: And you seem to be looking for more
power? PRIME MINISTER: If that's the Interpretation you put on
what I've just said yes.
QUESTION: Do you accept the interpretation?
PRIME MINISTER:* Well,. I think I must because if you make
nominees, if you want the power to make nominees disclose who
the beneficiaries are, then you're asking for more power yes.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, can I take you on to
another sensitive domestic issue this year the financial
relationship of the States with the Commonwealth. You've been
accused in this dispute of being a centralist it's an
accusation that you've repeatedly denied. Just how much
financial power do you want your Commonwealth Government to
have? PRIME MINISTER:, Well, can I go back to the genesis of this
debate, on this matter, and that was a suggestion of mine
11
p repeated in variou, place that it was time I thought the Liberal
Party examined the conocept of Federalism which as a dogma it
accepted some twenty-five Tears ago. Examined it and see
whether they still thought it was exactly the way it should be.
What I think is essential is that the central government should
be able to control the general economy of Australia. That if
there is too much pressure on available resources then the
central government take financial measures in order to reduce the
demand on those resources, that if there is not enough pressure,
if there are resources and men lying unemployed, then the central
government should be able to take financial action of one kind or
another in order to see that those unused resources were used.
SThis must be a function of the central government and I think that
leads one on to the conclusion that if this is accepted then a
central government must have as in fact it has had full control
of the major sectors of taxation. Not only fiscal control but
full control of the major sectors of taxation. And I wanted
those two propositions to be thoroughly examined and for people
to decide whether yes that really was the fact.
QUESTION: Do you think you've convinood the Premiers
U of that yet though?
FFUIMIENISTER: Well, what is going to happen about that
is that the Liberal Party is going to examine the whole question
which at least I believo must be good. But it's not only that.
I think there is also a need for a central government to see that
if there is a national need, that that national need is met all
throughout Australia. If I can give an example of that; if it
was agreed, I think it was generally agreed, that Australia needed
technicians and needed technologists for its future development,
and therefore needed better technical schools and better equipment
for the training of people going through them, if itta
agreed that there was that need then it was reasonable for the
central government to say this is a national need, we will provide
12
Section 96 grants to see that this is met and that it is met in
the same way in Queensland as it is uiet in Western Australia or
New South Wales.
QUESTION: Are there any particular activities
perfformned by the States now which you think as the years go by
will move more into areas off Federal control? Financial control?
PRIME MINISTER: I think that's a bit too speculative a
question and...
QUESTION: Well, take education for one which is
something in which your Federal Government and previous
Federal governments have given dollops of money'to the States.
Do you think this is an area where the Commonwealth is going to
take over more control of how the money is spent?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't believe that that is likely to
happen and I'm not sure, In fact I think I would not like it to
happen. But it may well be in the future, some time in the
future, responsibility for providing finance for education, for
providing finance for a technical school or ai secondary school
or a primar-y school or teacher training or whatever it has, may
come to be more off a Federal matter I don't see it in my time
but it may well be. But if it did come to that then one would
certainly not want to see, the finance having beon provided,
some central government saying what sort off syllabus would be
taught in a school and what number off teachers and where the
schools would be built or any of these matter which the States
could do much better.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, can we look now more closely
at you, at tho Gorton style. Earlier this year you said that you
did not see yourself as Prime Minister as a Chairman of Committee.
You said that if a Prime Minister believes strongly enough that
something ought to be done then It* must be done, this was
as far as Cabinet was concerned. Have you stuck to this?
* 13
PRIME MINISTER: I think that is still what a Prime M4nister
should do. But, mind you, it would only be in the most extreme
ca8s that it would be necessary for a Prime Minister to put into
action that particular attitude. In nine hundred and ninety-nine
cases out of a thousand it would be a matter as it should be of
discussion and decision by Cabinet but there could be some
occasions when the Prime Minister should say thais is something I
believe in very strongly, that it's got to be done, or you get
someone else.
QUESTION: Has such an occasion arisen this year?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
QUESTION: Has this philosophy caused any strains or
lost you any friends in Cabinet or Government?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't believo it has at all. In fact I
think that I really do believe that our Cabinet is working as
happy a team as I've ever seen one work.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, on this theme of your more
individualistic approach, your critics seem to imply that they
want a Prime Minister who stops, looks and listens before acting,
but they accuse you of sometimos stopping and looking but not
listening suffIiciently. Not taking all the advice. What's
your reaction?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, my reaction, I think I can best
express this way, that not only a Prime Minister but any Minister
running a department should get advice, listen to it, analyse it,
argue about it if they're not in agreement with it, and if having
done that the Minister or the Prime Minister believes that the
advice should not be taken then I think the advice should not be
taken because the decision must always rest with the Minister,
the Cabinet or a Prime Minister.
QUESTION: Yes, but the accusation is th~ t you don't
listen to all this advice.
PRIME MINISTER:* Well, I donft think thatte an accurate
accusation. It may be put fforward by some people, I don't know,
who really mean I don't take all this advice which is quite a
different thing.
QUESTION: I think in the case off the Esso-B. H. P. oil
agreement, it appears you didn't take Dr. Frankel's advice and he
was... PRIME MINISTER: Wall, Dr. Frankel was employed by the
Department off National Development to make reports to the Department
off National Development. The Department off National Development
was on the Intordepartmental Committee which made recommendations
to the Government, and they, the Interdepartmental Committee, had
made recoim'ondations and indicated that there was some need for
decisions on these recommendations apparently long beffore they
expected to receive Dr. Frankel's advice.
QUESTION: In the same area but with a diffferent twist,
these same critics sometimes think you're too hasty. Do you also
reject that criticism?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't believe I have been too hasty, I
can't think off anything I've been too hasty on.
QUESTION: Could I suggest for one, early in the
year you suggested you would place a ceiling on our commitment
off troops in Vietnam. You certainly watered this downm later.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don' t think so. We have kopt . a
ceiling on the troops in Vietnam.
QUESTION: Yes, but you decline to reaffirm that
wish.
PRIME MINISTER: I decline to reaffirm it indefinitely that
we enter the future under all sorts of unknown circuxuatancea but
in fact that statement was made and that statement has been
adhered to. Arid if I may say so that statement was expressing a
view which had been reached by a previous government to mine and
which was known abroad anyway.
QUESTION: Well, what some people may call hasty others
may call decisivenessargway. Do you see this, certainly this
speed of reaction as part of John Gorton or just something you see
a Prime Minister should do?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't think that there's any real
advantage in speed of reaction as such, just for speed of reaction.
There may bo occasions arising when speed is necessary but it's
not a virtue in itself. Indeed, on the matter of entering overseas
shipping which. I think is one of the most exciting things
Australia's done in the course of this year, there were long
discussions before the decision was finally taken by Cabinet, long
discussion by Mr. McEwen, by his officials, by myself with Mr.
McEwen, On the oil pricing there was long discussion in
Cabinet, interdepartmental coimmittees.. and so on,
QUESTION: Could I just chip in. When you talk about
Cabinet taking that decision on shipping; was it true in fact
that a London newspaper gave a report of that deal the same day
you put it before Cabinet?
PRIME MINISTER: A London newspaper correspondent gave some
of the aspects of the deal. But the deal, you k. now, was not put
before Cabinet as'this is a deal which has been concluded". It
was put before Cabinet as" Ithis is a proposition which the
shipping companies will agree to if you will agree to. Do you
accept the proposition?"
QUESTION: Prime Minister, you've said several times
this year that you hope for a new sense of nationalism in Australia?
Do you see any-signs of it?
* P * 16
PRIME MINISTER: I think people can only make their own
minds up on that and form their own judgments and their own
interpretations. I believe myself, rightly or wrongly, that there
is a growing feeling of cohesion and nationalism and pride in
Australia amongst Australians. I ' think there is. I hope there is.
I think there should be.
QUESTION: Sir, one of the things that seems implicit
S in some of things you h,, Ive said about nationalism i 3 that it
depends heavily on how much money we get for our enormous natural
~ resources, in some sense we are going to buy a national destiny.
That's not what you mean perhaps is it?
PRIM~ E MINISTER: That's not what I really mean at all, but
nevertheless it must be true, that if we are to develop as quickly
as we want to develop theni we need to get proper development capital
from abroad and as that develo~ ment occurs and particularly if there
is Australian participation in that development, then we will be
stronger and have more opportunities to do the things we want to do
which are not just material things inside Australia.
. QUEST IO : Well, what about the trappings of
. nationalism, Sir? You have alre. 2dy said you fancy Waltzing Matilda
as the National Anthem. You didn't say this?
P. RIME MINISTER: N o. I said we had a National Anthem and
it was God Save the Queen, and that in a monarchy such as Australia is
aL quite satisfactory National Anthem. But I did say I thought
Waltzing Matilda was a ' National Song. And my personal opinion was
it ought to be a ! Xational Song and I would be very happy to see.
it played on such occasions, for example our atheletes winning
something at the Olympic Games or something of that kind, but when
the Governor-General comes or when there is any significant matter
of that kind, then I think we have a National Anthem. But yet
O I 6 SK/( 7 7
1( 17
17
some people do not like Waltzing Matilda, but I do.
QUESTION: PRIME MII-TIST. ER:
QUESTION: have one of' our own? And the flag?
The flag I am quite ha-ppy. 1 with.
You would not want to follow Canada and
PRIME MINISTER: My own belief' is that our flag stands for
so much that I would not like to see it change.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, you have made a relatively
Sbig jump, well from a relatively junior Minister to Prime Minister.
Ihiv you have had twelve months there, have you enjoyed thi~ s year
of power?
O PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I have enjoyed it. It has been
extremely wearing~ very tiring; but subject to occasionally getting
slightly exhausted, yes I have enjoyed tt I am not sure there has
ever been another period when quite so many new things have
* happened; either from abroad. or instigated within Australia perhaps
by ourselves.
. QUESTION: Prime Minister, if you had to single out
one particular achievement this year, that you would take the
greatest pride in, which one would it be?
PRIME MINISTER:
QUESTION: Can I single out two?
All right.
PRIME MINISTER: Well the one I would put down as the
beginnings of' the entry of' Australia into carrying our own produce
in our own ships. We are leasing a couple of' the ships but in fact
we are manning them and controlling them. This I think is the
beginming-of something which I believe will grow and will be great
for Australia.
,18-
-QUE ST ION: Can I just butt in there? Isn'tt that
just a little bit adrift from normal Liberal philosophy to move
into an area of what some might see as socialism like that?
PRIME ]~ ISTEP: W'ell I think it depends on how you
interpret normal Liberal philosophy because after all, for a long,
long time the Liberals have been supporting a two airline policy,
twhich involves the running of airlines in competition and this
involves the running of ships in competition. I have never heard
* a Liberal urging that railways for example should be returned to
private enterprise, so no, I don't think it is.
The other thing that I am rather happy
about is that we have lifted the fear, I believe, from people who
might contract a long continued illness and who previously, even
though they were insured, would only be insured for a short period
of time but now will be insured for as long ~ as the illness continues.
Those are two things, there are a number of others that I am happy
Labout, but you only rationed me to two.
QUDSTION: Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed
Sfor giving us your time.