PRIME MINISTER'S PRESS CONFERENCE
AT THE UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK
TUESDAY, 1 OCTOBER 1974
QUESTION: We had a report from your country that the Shah of Iran
mentioned a possible exchange agreement of oil and Australian
uranium. Could you tell us something about this?
PRIME MINISTER: It would be putting it too simply to say an
exchange of oil and uranium. The Trade Agreement which Australia
has made with Iran doesn't mention oil. It is not, I understand,
ot the Iranian practice to mention oil in her Trade Agreement with
other countries. The Shah is very interested in obtaining regular
supplies from Australia of those resources which Australia is fortunately
situated. Uranium, of course, iron ore and the like. The suggestion
is that no arrangements have been completed of course the Iranian
Government could take in some of the Australian instrumentalities in
this field such as the Australian Industries Development Corporation
or the Petroleum and Minerals Authority. This would be a way of
preserving Australian ownership and control of these basic Australian
resources and at the same time guaranteeing a certain share of the
resources for the purchaser.
QUESTION: Can you just give us an idea of the'amount of uranium
they want?
PRIME MINISTER: No, there has been nothitig so specific as that.
All the discussions we had last week were to produce a climate in
which we can then get down to the details of the arrangements. But
we were very pleased with the discussions and got to understand each
other very well. The sort of resources the Shah would like to obtain
from Australia, and also, of course, he emphasises his preference
for Government-to Government arrangements in respect to resources
and to operate through state corporations.
QUESTION: Sir, one of the American newsagencies today reports from
Australia that the climate of your Government and you personally
are becoming recently more friendly to the United States since
Mr NiXon. Can you say anything about your present relations with
the United States?
PRIME MINISTER: I believe our relations with the U. S. have been
friendly along. I don't want to personalise these relatio..
I would thi. % k that relations between the United States and Australia
would be satisfactory whatever the Government was in Australia or
the United States. There is a basic community of interests.
QUESTION: I was intrigued by your opening lines in your speech where
you r-zferred to the fact that you are the first Head of an Australian
Sdemocratic Government to speak at the United Nations. I have
a d your philosophies carefully so I have some conception of
what changes you have brought. My question is designed to clarify what
a social democratic government means in terms, of course, internally,
and what does it mean in terms of foreign policy? I didn't was---
to ask you what it means in terms, idealogically, because I want to
avoid that and I want to spare you that? / 2
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PRIME MINISTER: Don't spare me. Let me cite what I would regard
as the social democrat governments at the moment or in recent years.
There would be the Scandinavian countries, West Germi-ny, Austria,
Britain, New Zealand, Australia. Those countries in particular would
have what we call Democratic Socialist Labor Governments. Well,
there are others one could add, the Netherlands. Now you can see
from those other countries I have mentioned what would be the
general attitude of an Australian Labor Government in international
affairs. We would probably place particular emphasis on the United
Nations. The other side in politics would be inclined to say that
we would take a starry-eyed attitude towards the United Nations.
Internally there would be particular emphasis by social democratic
governments on government initiatives in social and as well as in
economic directions. The last question I was asked regarding resources
you can see as an illustration. In Australia our Government would
be wanting to promote or create those public institutions for the
discovery, the development, the marketing of natural resources such
as the Petroleum and Minerals Authority and the Australian Industries
Development Corporation.
QUESTION: Can I follow this through with a supplementary question
on that in light of the fact that the Foreign Minister of Malaysia
referred to the organisation of South East Asiak in a regional phase
as a region of peace and neutrality. Now, does the social democratic
government concept, as you would apply it regionally, mean that you
in effect and I know that you are working very closely in South
East Asia with your neighbours that the region is gearing-itself
to join the non aligned concept of the world?
PRIME MINISTER: My Government supports the ASEAN concept which
you quote as being expressed by the Foreign Minister of Malaysia.
Australia and Malaysia follow a very closely similar line in all
foreign affairs matters in South East Asia and in the Indian Ocean.
I'm not particularly anxious to adopt a nomenclature aligned or
non-aligned. As I said in my speech to the Plenary yesterday we
are aligned in some traditional ways for which we don't apologise.
Nevertheless, we want to avoid a polarisation in the Indian Ocean,
for instance, between the two superpowers.
QUESTION: I have two other questions. The first one concerns the
five nation agreement which you have among Australia, New Zealand,
Malaysia and Singapore.
PRIME MINISTER: And Britain.
QUESTION: Yes. What is Australia's view regarding the continued
validity and effectiveness of this agreement, in particular the
stationing of ASEAN Forces in Singapore? My second question is
regarding the Australian Immigration policy which has caused some
concern to South East Asian Governments including that of Singapore in
that it has led to a brain drain from these particular countries. ./ 3
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PRIME MINISTER: Australia supports the framework of con~ sultation which
the Five Power Agreement provides. I'm not sure tha' all -the
correspondents would be familiar with the Five Power ,. grt; ement. It
is an arrangement between Singapore, Malaysia, Britain, Australia
and New Zealand. We do not believe, however, that it is necessary to
have troops from Australia, or for that matter from Britain and New
Zealand, stationed in Singapore, or for that matter in Malaysia,
in order to preserve the advantages of consultation undX! r the Five
Power Agreement. Australia no longer has soldiers in Singapore.
It does have some aircraft in Malaysia and we are bv * y to have those
* aircraft in Malaysia as long as they serve the purpo-! s of Malaysia
as well as Australia. In effect, Malaysia at this stage does not have
adequate fighter protection. She has for many years depended on
Australia to provide it.
You mention as your second question the position of
students from South East Asia in Australia. There have-been for the
last 25 years many thousands of students from South East Asia studying
at Australian universities and also at technical colleges or at
boarding schools. Australia believes that this is a contribution which
she can make to providing skills for her neighbours, in particular
areas where at this stage they do not have sufficient educational
institutions themselves. There is no objective by Australia to entice
bright students from her neighbours to carry on their careers in
Australia. Australia is, however, very happy to make places
available in her own quite crowded educationa institutions for
students from ' her neighbours where they can't get thc.., e forms of
training at home.
QUESTION: I'm not only taling about the students but the professional
people, some of whom have emigrated to Australia from developing
countries like'the Philippines and Singapore.
PRIME MINISTER: I think it's not that so many people have come
from the neighbour countries to practise their professions in
Australia but that many who have gained professional qualifications
in Australia have chosen or sought to remain in Australia. If, for
instance, we were not to allow those students from South East Asia who
had acquired university degrees, namely medicine or engineering, to
stay in Australia we would then be accused of pursuing a raci. 1t
policy. My Government, which came to office 22 months ago tomorrow,
has taken the attitude that if people have quali-fications which are
needed in Australia, they can come to Australia or stay in Australia
irrespective of their racial or religious beliefs and, accordingly,
there are, it is true, quite a number of. doctors in particular who
were born in South East Asia and who are now practising in Australia.
We can do with many more doctors in Australia than we have. 1 ould
be, we believe, an infringement of human rights to say th .~ can't
stay in Australia if they want to. Obviously, thei; qual... 1io ns
are acceptable, if they were gained in Australia. 1 4 th'il' aE
caused some misgivings among some of our neighbours '-hat zjiCy sent to
the expense of providing their primary and secondary edu-We
provided their tertiary education and then you have the iare
you to say that they are not to practise their prf.~ in
Australia. That they have to go home? That was said by the previous
Australian Government. Some of the students, doctors generally, didn't
want to go back to the countries of birth so they went to Canada
instead. Now that didn't serve Australia. It didn't serve our
neighbours.
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QUESTION: like to follow up the question about resources.
You said jA your speech " Yet there remains for the future one of
the oldest' of all the causes of war the threat of war for the
possession of resources." Well, in my book, l~ ind is a resource and
a very valuable one and you have about the biggest per capita
possession of land in the world. Living space has been a cause of
wars for some time as you well remember. What is your policy about
* letting people, not qualified, not educated but Chinese, Japanese,
Indian, who want a place to settle because they're hungry and there
isn't enough room where they are?
* PRIME MINISTER: It is true that Australia has a very large land
mass. It would be one of the, what I suppose, five largest members
of the United Nations territorially. Nevertheless, it is the driest
country in the world. The average rainfall over the whole of
Australia would be lower than that over any comparable land mass in
the world. It would just not be possible to readily pvt under
cultivation those parts of Australia which are not already under
cultivation. It would not be possible regularly to~ pasture animals.
in those parts of Australia where animals are not pastured already.
I don't say fhat there are not very large tracts in Australia which.
could not be used for agriculture or pasture.. I do point out,
however, that it would require a very much larger capital expenditure
to make them fertile, fruitful, dependable than pretty well any other
part of the w~ orld-The parts of Australia which are already used for
agriculture or pasture are those parts which are comparable to the
other parts of the world which are used for . agriculture or-pasture.
People who come to Australia don't want to settle on the land
* generally. The people who come to Australia in general want to settle
in the two very large cities of Sydney and Melbourne.
QUESTION: Sir, on the question of oil, I understand that your
Government was not consulted by the Gnited Nations when they opened
the campaign here with President Ford's speech. Do you think that
the strategy was good, or do you think that they got off on ti",,
wrong foot, with this-question, what has been-your feeling sii~ ce
you've been here about the reactions to the American campaign to get
oil prices down?
PRIME MINISTER: I haven't been long enough-in the United Si ~ zes t,.
comment appropriately or affectively on the matters you roire.
Perhaps I can say that Australia is not serio~ usly aff&_
the oil d. wvelopments of the last 12 months as are, say, soitle
industrialised countries such as Germany or France or BritriLL,,
believe also that while the United State's oil reserves are,~
and Australia's are quite small, in practise wp pnAudct2
oil a larger percentage of the oil we use thanx does the United
States. Australia produces about 70 per-cent of the oil she consu.'.-s
and she will be able to produce that percentage for another ten yea -S.
That's the limiting factor, the ten years, and the oil in which wo
are deficient is largely the heavy oil, the lubricating fuel oil .' id
so on. We are much more fortunately situated in other energy sources
than we are in oil. The other point I might make is that Australia
is naturally sensitive to the attitude of the developing countri(" s in
the use of their resources. Geographically, we bear their attiZ.:" 1C23i
in mind. Geographically,* we are not in Western Europe or North
America. We are not in the North Atlantic context geographically, we
are more akin therefore economically as well as geographically to
other countries, many of them developing countries. We share
their aspirations to have a fair price for our produ'ts. We would
wafit to see the price we got for our primary and natu... al products
was indexed to what we happened to pay for our necessary imports.
QUESTION: Yesterday, you expressed considerable concern on the
question of non-poliferation or poliferation and enumerated certain
agreements and initiatives that your Government favoured. You did
not perhaps inadvertently or otherwise, mention the Pakistan
South Asian Nuclear Free Zone. Could you tell me wh . ther your
concern and support extended to the Pakistan initiative and if so
does it extend strongly enough for you to vote for the item if it
comes up in the General Assembly?
PRIME MINISTER: Our attitude towards the Pakistan proposal is the
same as our attitude to the other proposals I listed. I didn't
purport to make an exhaustive list. We support the gen * eral concept.
We support the Pakistan proposal as well as those other ones which
I did in fact mention.
QUESTION: Mr-Whitlam, you were reported in Australia today as
saying that the Australian representative in t ' he Security Council
voted for South Africa's expulsion from the United Nations. A
spokesman for Senator Willesee has been reported as saying that
we have no final position. Could you reconcile the two รต tatements?
PRIME MINISTER.: I don't think that I've made any pronouncement on
this. I think it would be premature for me to express a view on it.
We did of course, as you know, and nearly everybody else did too
suppose, vote for this matter to be considered by the Security
Council. We are a member of the Security Council. I wouldn't want
to pre-empt the discussions on the-Security Council in which ofcourse
we shall have to take part.
QUESTION: Mr Whitlam, in your speech yesterday, fairly well down,
you mentioned any attempt by any State to bring about political
or economic change through clandestine or corrupt methods. You
also mentioned about even the most powerful nations can't do this.
In this country at the moment Chile is a big story. Were you
referring to the United States and what has happened in Chile with
the C. I. A.?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't know what the C. I. A. did in Chile or if they
did it. I believe there have been instances over the years in which
the Soviet Union as well as the United States have sought to guide
events in other countries. I hope that that guidance is counterproductive
and it is realised to be so.
QUESTION: Will it continue to be your Government's 0izyto
yield to the K. G. B. and return defectors who seek asylan in Australia
as you returned the musical genius Mr Ermolenko last August.
PRIME MINISTER: We refused to detain Mr Ermolenko agair. c4-hius will.
QUESTION: You allowed him to be with Mr Kabalevsky for 4 hours
alone -during which time it-is all-eged-he changed his mind. ./ 6
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PRIME MINISTbi Mr Ermolenko was for very many hours in'the company
of people. AuL'. ralians, people who were not Russians, Russian
officials or Russian private citizens. There is no question that
Mr Ermolenko wanted to go home. He did express apparently to a
couple of Australians the view that he would like to remain in
Australia. A day later, no longer, he changed his mind and he kept
resolutely for several days to his wish to go home. In those
circumstances it would have been a gross infringement of his rights
to detain him. No man should be detained against his will.
QUESTION: I apoligise if you have already been asked and answered.
this question I couldn't come on time.' Iran has made some rather
sweeping suggestions about the Indian Ocean and asked for Australia's
cooperation, what is your reaction
PRIME MINISTER: I'm not sure what proposals or reports you have in
mind. The Shah of Iran spent 8 days in Australia. He left last
Friday. There were wide-ranging discussions between him and his
Ministers and me and mine. We welcome the interest that the Shah has
shown in the countries to the east of Iran and the countries around
the Indian Ocean including our own which is diagonally across it
from his country. We believe that this interest by Iran, which has
become a very considerable nation under the present Shah, will be
beneficial for many other countries around the Indian Ocean.
QUESTION: Have you mentioned in particular the American potential
base in Diego Garcia and what is your view -on that possibility of
a base there? Do you oppose it, are you in favour of it, or do
you have no opinion on it?
PRIME MINISTER: I know of no country around the Indian Ocean which
has welcomed it.
* QUSTION:. Just across the street facing this building Ihere w7as
a very large demonstration the other day. The leaflet that
distributed I have here which says your recognition of the
incorporation of the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
Into the Soviet Union. It goes on to say that the elected
representatives, the Senate, in your country has denounced -hat
decision. Do you care to comment on your reaction and trl) the
Senate.. rdaction to it?
PRIME MI-ISTER: You said a very large demonstration. I-was
there was going to be one but I had to look very hard yesterday to
see anyone. Perhaps I should point out that in Australia the Senate
doesn't have the status that it has, for instance, in the United
States. In Australia we have a system inherited from Great Britaint~
v Parliament of Westminster. Accordingly the Government is composed
'~ that party or those parties which have a majority in the House
Representatives, which we call ours, just as the British
wvernment is composed of that party or parties with a majority in
the House of Commons. Foreign policy is determined in Australia,
as in Britain or Canada or New Zealand or India other countries
which have the British Parliamentary system by the Governments.
It is not determined by-the Parliament, still less by the Sena.',-in
our case, the House of Lords in Britain' s case. Accordingly, the
a/
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Government determines matters of foreign policy and the Government
in Australia the Australian Labor Party which has a majority
in the House of Representatives. Now what my Govern ent has done
is to re-cognise the de jure, the incorporation of the Republics of
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the Soviet Union. The historical
fact is that these three countries have been, except for the
years between the First and Second World Wars, parts of Russia.
Lithuania has, except for those years between the two wars, been part
of Russia since Catherine the Great. Estonia and Latvia have, except
those years between the two world. wars, been'parts ol Russia since Peter
the Great. And, before that, they were parts of Sweden since the days
of Gustavus Adolphus. Now I know that in Australi-, to a certain
extent, as in North America, both the U. S. and Canada, that there
are migrants from those countries who pursue-the proposition that
they should be separate independent states. They won't become
separate independent states unless there is a world war which the
Soviet Union lost. Now there are two particular points I would
like to make about this. It produces unnecessary tensions in
Australia, maybe also in the United States or in Canada, for people
to pursue this mirage of a separate statehood independent
sovereign statehood for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Some people
pursue the same attitude in Australia about Croatia. Now the fact
is that in the case of Croatia all of us have recognised Yugoslavia
ever since 1918. None of us have ever recognised a separate state
of Croatia except Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy in 1941, 42, 4
and 44. Now so much for the attitude of people who have settled
overseas in countries like Australia. It is a divisive policy
to encourage the belief that there may be separateo. states again.
I come to the attitude of people in those countries themselves. It
maybe that some would again like them to be independent sovereign
states. I bear in mind, however, that there was a great deal of
encouragement by radio, particularly, and maybe by pamphlets,
stirring up people who wanted to have a change of Government in
East Germany or in Poland or Hungary or in Czechoslovakia, and there
were a very great number of disappointed persons afterwards as a
result of the riots in Stettin or Warsaw or Budapest in the early
and middle fifties, or in Czechoslovakia in the time of Dubjeck in
1969. It:-is a deception to believe that countries which could not:
assist East Germany or Poland or Hungary or Czechoslovakia in the
early or middle fifties or in 1969, would lift a finger to hc-lp in
Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania. There are also some humanitarian
considerations which led to the recognition de jure of the
incorporation. Russia is a federal state. As long as Australia had
diplomatic relations with Moscow on the basis of the pre or the
inter-war boundaries, Australia could only make representations on
behalf of people living in Australia to the Federal Government '. n
Moscow. It could not make representations on what in thc 13. F r
Australia would be called state matters. It couldn't mr
representations to the republic governments in Estz i c and
Lithuania about matters which fall within their ju. sqi,' t.
QUESTION: Australia had been until last year a staunch ; upnorter
of South Korea on the Korean question in the United Nati since
then you have established diplomatic relations with Not. Krea.
I wonder what your position would be this year?
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PRIME MINISTER: At the General Assembly a year ago there was
a consensus to defer consideration of the Korean question. For the
first time the Assembly was not forced to a vote on this question.
The general view seemed to be that it would be desirable to encourage
the two governments in the Korean Peninsula to settle their
differences and to give away the prospect of confrontation. The
Australian Government applauded this change of attitude. It therefore
worked Very patiently but steadily towards the situation where we
could have diplomatic relations with both those governments. Of
course, we don't presume to say what our attitude is territorially
on the claims by the two governments. We don't do that in Germany,
* we don't do it in Vietnam, we don't do it in Korea, but we believe
these governments are both securely in power. It is therefore
desirable for us to have diplomatic relations with both of them.
Australia now has diplomatic relations with all the governments
between Australia dnd the North Pole all of them. By diplomatic
relations we don't say that we approve the nature of any government,
we merely say we accept its credentials, we believe it proper to
have official relations with them. We naturally hope that the
relations between the two governments in the Korean Peninsula
will become less strident than they have often been.
QUESTION: Mr Whitlam, can you explain why you-are going to Nashville?
PRIME MINISTER: Come along with me and see.