EM. ARCO : 7 P. M. SUNDAY
QUEETSLAND BROADCAST NO.
PETROLEUM AND MINERALS AUTHORITY
SUNDAY 29 JUE 1975
One of the prcaises on which my Government was elected was our
undertaking to stop the overseas takeover of Australia's mineral and energy
resources. That process had been going on unchecked under successive Liberal-
Country Party Govern-rents. hben Labor came in, we had reached the stage where
62 per cent of Australia's energy resources that is, cur coal, oil, gas and
uranium were in foreign hands. We weren't prepared to tolerate that situation.
Australians weren't prepared to tolerate it. In 1972 and 1974 the people gave
us a clear mandate to halt the drift. I doubt if there is any aspect of Labor
policy which is better understood or irore widely accepted both here and overseas
than this comnitmrent to maximum Australian ownership of our resources.
As with everything else we undertook to do, we inmediately began to
implement our promises. We introduced a Bill to establish the Petroleum and Minerals
Authority the P. M. A. as the chief instrument for asserting Australian ownership
and control. We introduced the Bill in our first year in office. The Senate
stalled it. We introduced the legislation again. The Senate rejected it. It
therefore became one of six Bills on which the double dissolution was granted in
April last year. It was one of the specific grounds for the general election in
May last year. The legislation was endorsed by the Australian people. They gave
us the go-ahead to bring it in again. We did so at the Joint Sitting of
Parliament last August. The Bill was passed at the Joint Sitting. No single
piece of legislaticn with the exception of our health Bills has received a
clearer and firmer mandate from the people or been more thoroughly debated in
the Parliament. Yet as soon as the Bill was passed, the four Anti-Labor States imnediately
challenged it in the High Court.
I give this brief history of the Bill because there has been a certain
amount of Jubilation among Liberal and Country Party politicians this week over
the Court's decision declaring the Bill invalid. Mr Fraser and Mr Bjelke-Petersen,
in particular, have sought to give the impression that the court found our whole
proposal in some way sinister and illegal. Now I don't want to argue the rights
and wrongs of the Court's decision. Presumably because the judges have not yet
published their reasons a majority of the Court found that through a technicality
this particular Bill should not have been the basis of the double dissolution. But
I want you to be quite clear that no judge has questioned the Government's right
to legislate for the P. M. A. That is not in dispute. I emphasise that the Court's
decision didn't say or infer that the Parliament is not entitled to pass such a Bill.
So, we shall put it to the Parliament again. In the meantime we shall continue to
develop Australia's natural resources with the fullest Australian participation,
ownership and control.
It is incredible, it is monstrous, that the Leader of the Opposition
is again threatening to block this legislation in the Senate. It is not so
long since he was telling us that under his leadership the Opposition wouldn't
hold up the Governrant's program; that the Government would be allowed to govern.
So much for that promise. Here we have one more example of Opposition obstruction
obstruction that can only encourage those people who want a sell-out of Australia's
assets, obstruction on a Bill that has received repeated and specific endorsement
by the Australian voters.
We have gone much too far with the P. M. A. to allow it to be frustrated
at this late stage by the States or anyone else. My colleague, Rex Connor,
has already announced the forr-ation of a Company in the Australian Capital Territory.
A major part of the $ 50 million provided for the Authority this financial year has
been cotiitted to assisting Australian mining ventures, including one in Queensland
The Mareeba Copper Mining Operation near Cairns. The Authority has also taken
an equity in coal mining in New South 1, ales and Natural Gas in South Aus. bralia,
thus helping to safeguard Australian ownership of these resources.
The other great task we have set for the Authority is mineral exploration
especially petroleum exploration. What was the Liberal contribution to the search
for minerals? It was to offer subsidies and tax concessions to private companies
and trust them to do the job. All that happened under the Liberals was that income
tax concessions for mining were exploited and abused to line the pockets of
speculators. Money that should have been going into exploration was diverted into
speculation in shares. One of our first acts as a Government was to close off those
loopholes and insist that the whole business of exploration should be tackled on a
national, businesslike basis through the Authority established for that purpose.
We are certainly not against the participation of overseas companies in the search
for oil and minerals, but we do insist that henceforth Australia will be the
primary partner in such ventures. That should be done it can only be done
through the Petroleum and Minerals Authority.
I'm quite certain that in the judgement of history the Government's
policies on Australian ownership of our minerals and energy will be seen to beright.
In an energy-hungry world we just can't afford to take chances with our
precious resources and trust to luck that foreign campanies will look after us.
That may be good enough for the Liberals but it's not good enough for us. If the
Anti-Labor States imagine that by obstruction in the Parliament, by litigation in
the Courts or by other nark tactics they are going to deflect us from our goals
they had better think again. The Australian people gave us a mandate to act in
these matters. The States will no more succeed in blocking our policies for
Australian ownership than they've succeeded in blocking Medibank. Mr Bjelke-Petersen
learnt that lesson this week; he has learnt it the hard way. Let it be a
lesson to the other anti-Labor States who are tempted to put foreign interests
before Australia's national interests.