DEATMN OF
MNO DATE
N122 22 August 1973
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINIST7R AND MINISTER FOR
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, THE HON. E. G. WHITLAM, ON
HIS NORTH AMERICAN VISIT, IN TI-fl HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
W~ EDNSPAY, 22 AUGULST, 1 973.
NORTH AMERICAN VISIT
I would like to take leave of the House to report briefly
to the Parliament and, through the Parliament to the Australian
neoole, on my recent overseas visit to Mexico the first by an
Australian Prime Minister to the United States and to represent
Australia at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Ottawa.
I believe the visit was timely and useful to Australia
both in establishing new and significant contacts overseas at the
Head of Government level and in developing the more diversified
and indenoendent foreign policy for Australia to which the
Government is committed.
In combining a visit to Mexico and a visit to Washington
with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Ottawa I was
able to restore a more appropriate balance to our anproach to
Central and North America. Washington is not the sole capital in
that vast hemisphere.
MEXTI CO In Mexico which is a leader of opinion in Central and
South America my delegation and I received an enthusiastic and
warm reception, especially from President Echeverria and Foreign
Minister Rabasa. I believe the visit has opened a window onto
Central and South America; that in future we shall have more
frequent and meaningful contacts with Mexico and, indeed, with
other Latin American countries.
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I found considerable common ground between our two
countries as middle powers on opposite sides of the Pacific.
Like Australia, Mexico has had problems of overdependence on
foreign countries and inadequate returns from the exploitation
of its natural resources. The Mexican Government is also strongly
opposed to the poisoning of the Pacific environment by nuclear
weanons testing and has taken the lead in ensuring that there will
be no such tests in Latin America.
I found that we were in general agreement also on that
complex subject, the Law of the Sea, and our respective representatives
w ill be co-operating closely in future to ensure that coastal states
receive a fair share of the wealth of the oceans and of the sea bed.
I believe that the Mexicans are well disposed to Australia
and our oresent policies and that they are eager to see the
relationship between our two countries further enhanced.
President Echeverria accented my invitation to him to
visit Australia, probably some time next year. In the meantime
we are oleased to welcome a group of Mexican Members of Parliament
and probably, next month, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Manuel
Aguirre. It is the firm intention of the Government that the
increasing momentum of our relations with Mexico in particular and
Latin America in general shall not be lost. I left President
Echeverria in no doubt that we looked forward to having him here,
not only because of the great n~ erson. il charm of which he and a* -/ 3
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Senora Echeverria disnose, but also because such a visit will nut
the seal, as it were, on the Government's policy of fostering
closer links with our neighbours across the Pacific.
I shall not take up the time of the House with further
details of my visit to Mexico as I propose to table the Joint
Communiqu. issued after my visit.
THE UNITED STATES
In Was'hington I had substantive and straightforward
discussions with President Nixon, Vice-President Agnew, Secretary
of State Rogers, Dr Kissinger and numbers of other prominent
Americans, including members of the Congress and the Senate
Committee on Foreign Affairs. All showed very considerable
interest in recent develonments in Australia.
My discussions in Washington covered the situation in
the Asian and Pacific region, including relationships between the
Great Powers, our relations with the United States, ANZUS, SEATO,
the situation in indo-China, nuclear testing, Korea, regional
co-operation in Asia, the special importance of Japan and
Indonesia to us, and other matters of mutual interest.
I told United States leaders that we continue to give
strong support to ANZU9 which we see as embodying some of the most
imnortant nermanent and natural elements in the relationship between
the three Pacific nartners. On the American side also, the value
of ANZUS is not questioned. / 4
I also told the Secretary of State that ANZUS alone of
ou Treaties in this area seemed entirely satisfactory and that
any Australian Government would strongly support it.
I explained our reservations about SEATO and found that
many of them were shared by the United States. I made it clear
that some aspects of the Manila Treaty as distinct from the
Organisation itself, were of continuing value, especially to
TPailand, and that Australia did. not intend to withdraw from SE'! ATO.
I can assure the House that, following my talks in
Washington, I believe those basic matters on which we agree are
much more numerous, imnortant and lasting than those few issues
on which our views might differ. That is certainly the view of
the American Administration,
I believe, in fact, that the Australian-American
relationship will be seen to rest now on firmer foundations
than it did in the past, We have brought it to a new maturity.
I believe too that the American Administration now fully
accepts that Australia is not a small and relatively insignificant
country as it was once called there but a middle power of growing
influence in the South East Asian and South Pacific regrions,
I believe that America respects and welcomes the less
compliant and more independent, though equally friendly annroach,
which the Australian Government now adopts towards the United States.
a0
In the United States I also paid a brief visit to New
York where I visited the United Nations headquarters and addressed
a very well attended gathering of the Australian-American Association.
The texts of this speech and my address to the National
Press Club in Washington are of course available io any Member
who might wish to have them,
THJE COMM~ ONWEAL~ TH
I turn now to the meeting of twenty-three Commonwealth
Heads of Government and representatives of the other nine
Commonwealth Heads of Government which took place in Ottawa from
2 to 10 August. This was, in the opinion of the more experienced Heads
of Government present, the most successful Commonwealth Meeting yet
held at this level. It was successful because participants
focussed their attention on the main practical issues in international
affairs facing us today. The Conference was attended for the most
part by men with modern ideas. They represented every geographic
region. Above all it was a meeting of equals sharing a common
concern for co-operative effort and frank consultation.
The scope and achievements of the Conference are outlined
in its final Communique which I also table for the House's
information, The document largely speaks for itself. / 16
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The Meeting was remarkable, not as some have suggested
for differences of opinion, but for the wide identity of interest
in the aDproach of so many members to the realities of contemporary
international life. We started with the basic proposition that we
of the Commonwealth are now all medium or smaller powers and that
we all experienced in some way or other a vulnerability to changes
brought about by the nature of the relationships between the major
powers. From this position we developed an appreciation of the
opportunities for members of the Commonwealth and the benefits
to be realized through closer Commonwealth consultation and
co-operation. In this respect my pre-election statement of faith
in the Commonwealth and its importance for Australia has been
vindicated. I would like to place on record the value of the wideranging
discussions to all present and to draw attention to the
practical and functional co-operation at the Conference.
Moreover, I believe I established or consolidated a
number of very useful personal contacts with a number of Heads of
Governments especially from the Caribbean countries, Africa, and
countries like Bangladesh, Sir Lanka, Malaysia, Mauritius and, of
course, Canada itself. These contacts demonstrate that the
Commonwealth is, as I believed even before I went to Ottawa, a
valuable forum through which Australia can develop its more
diversified approach to our foreign affairs. / 7
The need to codify acceptable behaviour by multinational
corporations has been widely recognised and is the subject of detailed
study by the United Nations, Problems created by a " brain drain" in
develooing countries have been the subject of international
negotiation and study for a number of years. Similarly our concern
with the threat from atmospheric nuclear tests is shared universally
even if it is not transmitted in every case into effective action.
In this resoect i regret that a very small minority of Members could
not sumoort the original declaration submitted by the Prime Minister
of New Zealand, to which we lent our sunport, in the context of
our present efforts to orevent further such tests.
In Ottawa I was able to indicate to Commonwealth leaders
that Australia will give more active support to Commonwealth
co-onerative ventures, We already are a contributor to its major
channel for multilateral assistance, the Commonwealth Fund for
Technical Co-operation and to the Commonwealth Foundation. I
announced in Ottawa that Australia will also sunport the new
Commonwealth Youth Program to the extent of 860,000 per annum for
the next three years and that we will Darticinate in the further
study of Droposals for a Commonwealth Development and Export Bank
and an institute for the auplied study of government.
I believe the contacts I made in Ottawa will lead to
the develonment of more meaningful relationshios with a number
of countries in the Caribbean and around the Indian and Pacific
Oceans, and in Africa, / 8
AUSTRALIAN REPRESENTATION
I should report to the House that one consequence of my
visit to Mexico, Washington and Ottawa will be the widening of
Australian representation in the Caribbean and in South America.
Following the discussions which I had, I Dropose to take
steps to accredit the Australian High Commissioner in Canada to
the five Caribbean Commonwealth countries, Jamaica, Trinidad and
Tobago, Barbados, Guyana and the Bahamas, pending the establishment
of a separate High Commission in the Caribbean, the head of which
will then be accredited to all five countries. At the same time
I have under active review the Cuban request to establish a Trade
or Consular Office in Australia. I am also consulting Guatemala
and Panama with a view to accrediting non-resident Ambassadors
to these countries. I seek leave of the House to table the Communique issued
at the conclusion of my visit to Mexico and the Joint Communique
adopted in Ottawa by the Meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of
Governments.