NQ DATE
M/ 77 1 May 1973
MR WHITLAM'S OVERSEAS VISIT, APRIL 1973
Attached is the text of a statement delivered
to the House of Representatives on 1 May 1973 by the
Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Mr E. G. Whitlam.
I wish to report quite briefly to Parliament on the
overseas visit from which I returned yesterday. Subject to the
requirements of the legislative program, I hope later in the
session to be able to make a comprehensive statement to the House
on the broad perspectives of the Government's foreign policy.
Honourable Members will know that I led the Auistralian
Delegation to the Fourth Meeting of the Pacific Forum from
17 to 19 April in Apia, Western Samoa. For the first time there,
seven Commonwealth countries were represented by their Heads
of Government, as were the two countries with observer utatus,
Papua New Guinea and Niue. Through leading the Delegation to
this meeting myself I wished to emphasise the very deep interest
which the Government takes in the affairs of the South Pacific.
The Australian Government seeks to play a co-operative and
helpful role in this area but in no way wishes to dominate in
the region. The Forum itself is so arranged that the great differences
in size and economic strength between Australia and New Zealand
on the one hand and the Pacific Islands on the other can be
ameliorated by meeting as equals in its informal atmosphiere.
I believe that on this occasion, as before, the meeting
of the Forum was useful and successful. I am sure that these
meetings will continue to consoli9--te regional co-operation between
Austrailia and New Zealand and the islanders in the South Pacific.
At its first session, the F~ orum adopted a Joint
Declaration deploring French nuclear tests in the Pacific. This
declaration was an Australian initiative fully supported by the
Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr Kirk, and promptly agreed to
by all other members of the Forum. We hoped that a declaration
would have more impact than a reference in the communique. We
were able to cable this declaration to Paris on the first day of
the meeting while the Attorney-General, Senator Murphy, was there
for the talks which he was conducting at that time with the French
Government.
The Forum also requested me to take up with the British
Government later in my visit the question of French tests in the
Pacific, since that. Government is responsible for dependent
territories in the area including Pitcairn Island, the British
Solomon Islands Protectorate, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands
Colony and, in part, the New Hebrides. This I did.
I was also pleased to announce to the Forum a voluntary
contribution of $ NZ250, OOO for 1974. This contribution, which is
made to the South Pacific Commission, is in excess of our assessed
contribution and in addition to the SA15 million three-year aid
program announced in 1972.
Fiji, and other members of the Forum, also accepted an
Australian proposal that there should be a conference of Labour
Ministers from Forum countries to discuss labour and related
matters in Australia later in the year.
I also indicated Australia's willingness to organise
an international training course in export development for the
island members of the Forum in Australia in November.
I left the Forum for Vancouver and London before the
final day, on which the Special Minister of State led the Australian
Delegation. In Vancouver, the Prime Ministe~ r of Canada, Mr Pierre
Trudeau, extended to me the courtesy of meeting me in Vancouver
for private talks while my aircraft was in transit,
The value of these talks was in no way diminished by
the informality of the occasion and they confirmed my long-held
belief that there are many areas in which Australia and Canada
should co-operate more closely than in the past. We face similar
problems in relation to our need to improve the status of our
Aboriginal people. We face similar problems related to Foreign
ownership and foreign investment. We can, I believe, develop * a &/ 3
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fruitful and more regular consultations on trade matters of
common interest, our approach to questions in the United Nations,
and law of the sea and multi-national corporations.
I have arranged with Mr Trudeau that our Governments
should consult more closely and directly on these mL-ters and
that we should telephone each other as a matter of course when
matters of mutual interest arise which affect Canada and
Australia. Before going into details about my London discussions,
I would like to place on record the Government's general approach
to relations with the United Kingdom.
The Australian Government's aim is to make our
relations with Britain an integral and important part of our
general international relations and not something apart as they
have tended to be in the past.
Our relationship with Britain is inevitably changing.
The changes we have made or propose to make on such matters as
the powers of the Governor-General, appeals to the Privy Council,
a new national anthem, the Queen's Style and Titles and the
amendment of the oath of allegiance are in no way directed
against Britain. They are solely intended to put our relationship
on a more mature and con ;-emporary basis and to reflect the
development of a more -dependent Australian identity in the
world. Indeed, what the Australian Government is seeking to
achieve in its relations not only with Britain but with a number
of other countries the United States, China, Canada, and our
Asian neighbours, for instance is to give formal recognition
to what has already happened, as the necessary foundation for a
realistic, more independent, more mature foreign policy. What
we seek to do is no artificial convulsion of contrived nationalism.
This is certainly well understoo(' and appreciated in London.
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My talks with Mr Heath, Sir Alec Douglas Home, Lord
Carrington, Lord Hailsham ana other Ministers covered a wide
range of matters of mutual interest in the foreign affairs,
defence and constitutional fields.
I explained to Sir Alec Douglas Home and other
Ministers and officials the decision of the South Pacific Forum
in relation to French nuclear tests. I said that I was not
speaking only on behalf of Australia but of the seven countries
of the Forum, all of which were associated with the Commonwealth.
I indicated that the Forumn countries believe the United Kingdom
should talk to the French. This would appear to be a natural
consequence of our close Commonwealth relations, of Britain's
major role in the negotiation of the partial Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty and of its responsibilities, as an administering power,
in respect of a number of Pacific territories. Honourable
Members will be pleased to know that Sir Alec Douglas Home said
he would study the views expressed at the Pacific Forum meeting
and by myself and that he would draw them to the attention of
the French Government. Sir Alec also pointed out that the
United Kingdom had already urged the French to sign the partial
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
In Rome I was received by His Holiness the Pope in
private audience. I regard myself as privileged to have been
able to discuss many matters with this gentle and wise man.
He welcomes the establishment between Australia and the Vatican
of diplomatic relations, as a convenient means of communication
and as facilitating the practical matters which need to be
transacted. The Holy Father said, however, that even this
sensible development of diplomatic machinery could not increase
the depth of his regard for Australia and its people, and the
warmth of his recollections of ' his visit to this country.
I took advantage of my brief visit to Rome to call
on the senior Italian minister in Rome during my visit, Signor
Golombo, who is, as honourable members will know, the
predecessor of the present Prime Minister of Italy, Signor
Andreotti, who was away from Italy. Signor Colombo has an
especially high reputation in E. E. C. circles.
I outlined to Signor Colombo the present Government's
thinking on foreign policy matters. I found a close identity
of views between our two Governments on all matters which we
discussed, for example, the recognition of China and North
Viet-Nam. I also explained to Signor Colombo our attitude to
continued French nuclear testing in the Pacific. I posed the
question to him that, if the tests were as clear and as harmless
as the French suggested, then could they not be conducted in
Corsica. I was given to understand in clear terms that the
Italian Government understood the concern of Australia, New
Zealand and the Pacific Islanders in a continued atmospheric
testing in the Pacific and I was left in no doubt as to what
the reaction of Italy would be if the French were to conduct
nuclear tests in the Mediterranean.
On the way home I had talks in Mauritius with the
Governor-General and the Prime Minister and Leader of the
Labour Party, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. I told the Prime
Minister that we would welcome Mauritian representation in
Australia and, apart from our need for area consultation, the
opportunity that this might provide to tell Australians of the
great pleasure they could derive from visiting the star and
key of the Indian Ocean; that we were happy with the way in
which the 26,000 migrants from Mauiitius have settled without
difficulties in Australia. I also assured the Prime Minister
that our modest aid program under the Special Commonwealth
African Assistance Plan would continue, and offered further
assistance in the trade promotion field and marketing.
I raised, as I did in each country I visited, the
question of French atmospheric nuclear tests. The House will
understand that traditional French influence in Mauritius is / 6
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substantial. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister indicated that he
would consider what he might say on this matter when he visits
Taris shortly, and, in the meantime, indicated that he would have
the question raised with the French Ambassador in Mauritius. The
Prime Minister is clearly aware that, travelling as it does from
west to east, fall-out from French testing affects his country as
much as it does ours.
In conclusion, I would inform the House that during the
14 days I was away, including Easter Week, I believe I was able to
emphasise our growing interest in regional co-operation in the
South Pacific, to take steps to put our constitutional relationship
with the United Kingdom on a more mature and rational basis and
to clear away any misconceptions that may have existed about our
relations with the United Kingdom, to establish as Prime Minister
personal contact with Her Majesty the Queen and the Pope, and to
pay a goodwill visit to the small but important Commonwealth
country of Mauritius.
In each of the four areas in which I stopped, the South
Pacific, the United Kingdom, Italy and Mauritius, I was able to
outline the general direction of the Government's foreign policies
and the more independent stance we are taking in four diverse and
widely separated areas of the world.