PRIME MINISTER
FOR PRESS 11 APRIL 1977
PRIME MINISTER'S ADDRESS AT OPENING CEREMONY OF I. P. U.
I am very pleased to join with His Excellency, the Governor
General, the Chairman, and President, in welcoming all of you
to Australia.
Your five study groups, which will meet in our National
Parliament this week, in preparation for the 64th Annual
Conference of the IPU, are discussing issues of great
importance to every country and to all people.
The five subjects you will examine are diverse: disarmament;
world economic development; decolonisation; and two issues
of world resources, the law of the sea, and water management.
Yet they have a common theme. Each in its own way vitally
concerns the world's peace and security. In each area,
progress is urgently required.
The maintenance of international peace and security and the
achilevement of significant arms limitation, hold a hiq. h
priority in the Australian Government's foreign policy.
The immediate task of arms control is to ensure greater
stability in international relations. We should strive to
set military balances at the lowest possible levels compatible
with general defence requirements; and we should seek the preven.
rtion of the proliferation of destabilising weapons systems
which can contribute to arms races.
It is encouraging that over one hundred countries have ratified
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Despite its imperfections,
that Treaty offers the best prospect of containing the spread of
nuclear weapons.
Australia has welcomed the progress that has been made thus far
in the strategic arms limitation talks between the USA and the
USSR, and we hope that the problems encountered duringr the recent
visit of Mr. Vance to the USSR do not deter either party from
continuing negotiations. We attach great importance t~ o the
achievement of an agreement which would end nuclear weapons
teSting in all environments. / Mankinid is
-2
Mankind is also faced with pressing resource problems.
The world community is gradually coming to grips with the
problem of safeguarding the environment in which we live,
and of developing more rationally our scarce natural resources.
The deficiencies of water supplies, both in quantity and quality,
looms as one of the great issues in economic and social development
over the next twenty five years. It is within this context
that the importance of the IPU's study group on water must be
seen. I hope that the group will be able to alert the broader community
to the fact that a higher priority must be given to water conservation,
and shed some insight on how this awareness can be translated
into practical policies.
The study group dealing with the Law of the Sea is a prelude,
not only to the IPU's meeting at Sofia later this year, but to
the next session of the Law of the Sea Conference, which will
begin in New York next month.
That Conference is now faced with an impasse on the important
issue of the seabed-beyond national jurisdiction. Australia is
anxious to see this impasse broken. It is apparent that, ' unless
there is a resolution of this issue, the agreements which have
already been tentatively reached on many of the other issues
being considered by the Conference, may very well break down.
If this happens, an historic opportunity to make a widelyaccepted
comprehensive convention, will have been lost.
Australia believes all nations should make every effort at
the forthcoming session to reach accommodation on this vital issue.
Australia takes a strong interest in the continuing dialogue
between developed and developing countries on a new international
economic order.
We are sympathetic to the economic problems and aspirations
of developing countries, and we recognise the need to help
speed up the pace of economic development in the developing
nations. Aid to the developing countries has an essential
contribution to make to this process.
Australia believes that there are improvements which could be
made in this area, Fe have argued that wherever possible,
official aid should be provided in ways that avoid adding
to the recipient's debt burden.
While Australia
believes that the essential framework of the present international
economic system is sound, there is a clear need to endeavour to
identify realistic and practical ways in which it can be improved,
to the benefit of all countries. / The IPU
3
The IPU because it provides a forum for informed and
constructive dialogue between representatives of developing
and developed countries, is'well placed to take part in the
international consideration of this vital issue.
One subject that is at least as important as all of those I
have mentioned, is the question of human rights. One of the
study committees will be examining a key aspect of this question
when it looks at decolonisation. Australia takes an active
part in the international debate on this subject. In
particular, through its membership of both the UN Special
Committee on Decolonisation and the UN Council for Namibia.
I reaffirm the Australian Government's resolute opposition to
all forms of racial discrimination, and its support for those
practical measures, in conformity with the charter of the
United Nations, designed to end apartheid and other forms of
racism. Ladies and gentlemen, you have much to discuss. I wish your
deliberations well, for in each of the areas to which I have
referred, greater understanding and new initiatives are
urgently required.
EDITED EXTRACT FROM THE PRIME MINISTER' S OPENING ADDRESS
AT THE I. P. U. -CANBERRA, 11 APRIL 1977
There are still some who argue that sport and politics
have no relationship.
They aLrgue that as sporting teams come and perform
teams selected on a racial basis that is not something
which should concern governments or in which governments should
take some action.
That kind of view is no longer credible today.
It is not the government of the host country that has
introduced sport into politics. It is the government of the
other country that has made arrangements for sport to be so
structured internally that people of one race alone can
part icipate.
Accordingly, if a government operates its own social and
economic system in that form, other governments cannot be
expected to continue with the outdated proposition that
sport is separate from politics.
It is clear that where a sport is practiced on a racist basis,
goverrnments must carry responsibility. It is the government that
has then introduced politics into sport.