EMBARGO: 5. 00 PM
PRIMES RINISTEA
FOR MEDIA SUNDAY, 20 JUNE 1982
ELECTORATE TALK
This year's meeting of the ANZUS partners, which starts
tomorrow inL Canberra, marks the 30th anniversary of the
ANZUS Treaty. These meetings are a valuable way of focussing
our perceptions of current developments in the Asia Pacific
region as well as the global situation. They also remind us
of the close links which exist between Australia, New Zealand
and the United States.
ANZUS is strongly supported by the vast majority of Australians.
It has stood the test of time, and it is profoundly realistic
in relation to Australia'Is strategic situation in the 19
ANZUS protects Australia' s vital interests; it secures
Australia's sovereignty and independence; it demonstrates our
willingness to play our part in achieving security for our
region. We live in an unpredictable world. Dangers can come out of
apparently clear skies, as the Falklands crisis showed so
plainly. If problems ever arose in our part of the world
which we thought might become greater than we could master on
our own account, it is the ANZUS Treaty which would stand as
the guarantor of Australia's security, through the support of
our alliance partners.
S The ANZUS Treaty itself has two main parts. It requires its
members to take action, both jointly and separately, by means
of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, to
maintain their individual and collective capacity to resist'
armed attack. Because of this emphasis on the importance
of self-help, the expectation that the other partners will
join in at a time of need is clearly bound up with each party
taking measures on its own behalf to maintain its own security.
In the second place, ANZUS provides for the alliance partners
to consult together in times of emergency, if any of them sees
threats in the Pacific to their territorial integrity, their
political independence or their security.
The Australian Government is committed to building a strong and
self-reliant defence force for Australia, designed to meet a
wide range of possible contingencies in the years ahead. At the
same time we are committed to firm alliance relationships,
based on the closest co-operation. Australia and the United / 2
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States have long been involved in co-operation across a
wide range of common concerns, and that is a continuing process.
It is important to realize that ANZUS does not only operate
in emergencies or extreme situations, it has a day to day
relevance, as-the basis of a working partnership.
We see the partnership at work in joint exercises in the
arrangements for B-52s to stage through Darwin, and in the
visits of US naval ships to our ports. There have been more than
330 visits to Australian ports by US naval ships in the
last 10 years. The capacity for all United States ships
without distinction to come to our ports is plainly valued by
the United States. It contributes to strategic deterrence
and it provides the kind of support that Australia would
obviously want to give to allies. We also see the day-to-day
partnership at work in Australia's access to US training
schemes and technology and in the agreements which successive
Australian Governments have entered into with the United
States on joint facilities.
One of the strengths of alliances and alliance arrangements
between free! countries is that their terms and pro-, isions need
to be acceptable to-all parties, and in making particular
arrangemE-Its on matters such as joint facilities, and B-52s
staging through Darwin and conducting low level navigation.
flights over northern Australia, the Government has made
sure of preserving absolutely Australia's own sovereignty and
independence!. I want to refer particularly to the joint facilities at Pine
Gap and Nurrungar, and to the naval communications station
at North-West Cape. Pine Gap and Nurrungar are joint
facilities concerned with defence space research and
communicatio~ ns, together they form an important component of
the alliancei between Australia and the United States, and
as joint facilities Australia has full access to all
information passing through them.
The North-West Cape Communications Station is a relay facility.
It does not initiate messages, but serves as one of the many
channels through which the US transmits messages to its forces.
One of its functions is a part of the nuclear deterrence
system. It is a way of ensuring that information could always
be transmitted to submarines, even underwater, in the Indian
Ocean, and t: he effective deployment of deterrence is important
to Australia's security as it is to the security of all western
countries. The North-West Cape facility, as a joint facility,
is used by Australia to transmit messages to our ships. I for
one would not have any overseas government interfering in the
messages we could send. And if we would not accept that for
our message: 5, how could we expect to dictate to the United
States what messages it might transmit through these facilities? 3
3
Beyond its day-to-day relevance, ANZUS also has a wider
significance, for ANZUS is an important part of the web of
alliances and treaty arrangements which constitute the entire
Western Alliance. In the present world environment, the
western countries need to demonstrate a greater resolve and
commitment than ever in order to achieve world peace and
security, in order to preserve the freedom and the way of life
which we want to pass to our children.
A stracg, stable ANZUS has a significant role to play in
demonstrating the commitment and resolve that are so
necessary. As a nation, Australia stands fully behind ANZUS,
in support of these objectives. oOo---