PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
PARLIAMENTARY DINNER IN HONOUR OF CHANCELLOR KOHL
PARLIAMENT HOUSE
CANBERRA 4 OCTOBER 1988
Federal Chancellor,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen.
it is a great pleasure to welcome you and Mrs Kohl and the
members of your distinguished party to dinner in the
Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia.
I know this is not your first visit to Australia. In 1972
you visited us in your capacity as Premier of the State of
Rhineland Palatinate. But because you are the first
Chancellor to visit Australia, your visit and our welcome to
you take on a very special significance and a very special
warmth. I extend to you our deep regret at the sudden death of your
coalition partner, Dr Strauss, and we fully understand that
In these unfortunate circumstances you have been forced to
cut your visit short. But you and your distinguished party
are very welcome among us.
Mr Chancellor,
This visit, in the year in which Australians celebrate the
Bicentenary of European settlement, takes on special meaning
when we recall the long links between Germany and Australia.
These links predate 1788. Captain Cook, for example, was
accompanied on his second world voyage by a Prussian
scientist Johann Forster, one of whose noteworthy
contributions was this prediction about the future of
Australia which he made in 1787: " New Holland, an island of
immense size, or, if you like, a third terra firma, is the
future dwelling place of a new society which, insignificant
though its beginnings nay seem, promises to be very
important very soon." ; 113 17
We may say with pride: they were indeed words of
prescience. For what we are celebrating in this
Bicentennial is the creation by Australians over two
centuries of a great society of freedom and prosperity. We
celebrate in particular the immeasurable enrichment of our
society not only by the Aboriginal people who settled this
land for more than 40,000 years but also by the wave after
wave of immigrant people who came, and who still come, from
all corners of the globe to find a new home here.
Among these immigrant peoples, the contribution of the
Germans is impossible to overlook.
Germans were among the initial shiploads of people who
arrived in Australia some of them free settlers and some
convicts. The very man selected to lead the First Fleet to Australia
and to be the first governor of the new colony, Captain
Arthur Phillip, was himself of German ancestry; his father
Jakob was born in Frankfurt. Phillip was a fluent German
speaker and was deeply influenced by the ideas of the German
Enlightenment.
And among the first settlers of South Australia were Germans
who arrived near Port Adelaide in 1838 150 years ago to
live in religious freedom in a new land.
I am delighted that you will still be able to spend some
time in South Australia tomorrow.
More immediately, you can experience one of the great
achievements of the Germans in South Australia tonight.
Some of the wine being served here is South Australian and
therefore very much the fruit of our proud German-Australian
heritage. Mr Chancellor,
The development of Australia economic, cultural,
scientific, spiritual and in many other ways owes a great
deal to the achievements of energetic, dedicated settlers
from Germany who made their home here.
indeed the richness of this heritage has greatly enhanced
our appreciation of the Federal Republic's contributions to
the Australian Bicentenary. I am thinking of the generous
grant which has made possible the Australian opera's highly
acclaimed performance of Richard Wagner's " Die
Meistersinger". I recall too the splendid spectacle of the
German naval training vessel " Gorch Fock" among the Tall
Ships in Sydney Harbour in January this year, and of course
your magnificent pavilion at Expo in Brisbane.
of course the links between Australia and the Federal
Republic of Germany do not all reflect the past: on the
contrary they are diverse, dynamic and forward looking.
23918
Here let me make a relevant but more gqneral observation
about Australian foreign and economic policy.
It is, these days, a commonplace that Australia is part of
Asia and the Pacific. That represents a relatively recent
and historically important change in Australia's thinking
about its place in the world. It is an accurate description
not just of our geography but, to a significant extent, of
our security and of our economy.
But let there be no misapprehension about what Australia's
enmeshment into the Asia-Pacific region means for our
relations with the countries of Europe.
Western Europe matters to us-greatly as a centre of free
democratic values, as a vital hub of commerce and of
finance, and as a cornerstone of the Western security system
and I mean all of Western Europe. Notwithstanding our
historical ties to Britain, we are not inhibited in adapting
our foreign and economic policies to new realities.
Moreover, far from weakening our ties with Europe,
Australia's increasing integration into the Asia-Pacific
region creates unique opportunities for our economic
co-operation with countries like Germany.
Australia has a heritage of European parliamentary
democracy, institutions, law and culture. We are
politically stable.
Australia is not only a modern diverse economy in its own
right, it is a stable platform to the fastest growing region
in the world. we are part of that region, yet our kinship
with Europe provides the familiarity and ease of doing
business so important to establishing a sound commercial
base in the region.
This, in a sense, affords Germany and other European
countries the best of all possible worlds as far as
investment in the Asia/ Pacific region is concerned.
So we welcome German investment in Australia, and we assert
with conviction, Mr Chancellor, that our unique position in
the region makes us a very attractive place for investment
from your country and the other countries-of Europe.
it is in this context, Mr Chancellor, that I stress the very
great importance we attach to your visit as a symbol of the
vital and growing links between Australia and the Federal
Republic of Germany.
The Federal Republic has firmly anchored itself in the
Western Alliance. we share your convictions and values in
that respect absolutely.
You supply an increasing number of tourists to Australia
some 60,000 this year. We welcome them warmly.
You are about to send an investment mission from the Federal I II
Association of German Industry later this month. We look I.
forward to that visit with confidence. if
And you are one of our major trading partners, ranking third6
as a source of Australia's imports, and ninth as a market M
for our exports. We value that relationship deeply. A
Mr Chancellor, il
d
For all these reasons I was gratified to hear you speak S
today in our talks of opening a new chapter in relations
between our two countries. I welcome that hope and place I
great value in it. c
y
decades have given it an important leadership role both in
trhees poECn siabndi liitnideese d esipn ectihae llwyo rlads tehceo nowmoyr. l d Scuucrhr enat lryo lef acceasr ries aTI
external imbalances in major countries, a C
Such imbalances will be corrected: it is a question of how, a
Does the correction come through deflation in the deficit a
countries or some ' shock' to the international system, or IS
through complementary policy change in a number of
countries? It
While the Federal Republic's leadership role is in evidence
through its anti-inflationary policies, the very success of n
these policies and its large external surplus means that thef
world community expects the Federal Republic to shoulder a
more of the burden of contributing to world growth. f
The Federal Republic of Germany will also continue to have a
vital role to play in bringing about greater security and
confidence at the global level and within Europe.
We observe with interest the development of your
relationship with your European neighbours East and West. e
And we recognise and applaud your notable contribution to
the conclusion of the treaty on the elimination of
intermediate-range nuclear weapons.
I believe that we are witnessing a time of enduring progress
in arms control. The INF Treaty established a climate of
practical co-operation between the super-powers which I
strongly hope and expect will yield further practical
results, not only in nuclear disarmament.
Australia is also profoundly interested in the progressive
development of policies in the European Community.
We congratulate you on the highly successful German
Presidency of the European community in the first six months
of this year.
24 UO
The development of a stingle market with 320 million
inhabitants constituting a market larger than any other
industrialised market, including the United States will
surely have a profound impact on global economic and trading
relationships, and the Federal Republic will surely exert a
major influence in the events leading to 1992.
Australia views the emergence of such a market positively,
in the expectation that we will be able to continue the
dynamic relationship we have currently with the EC member
States. I was heartened this morning that you understood the
concerns of many about a " Fortress Europe" and that you said
your aspirations for Europe would be thwarted if the new
single market was built on protectionism.
The Australian Government's interest in achieving reform in
agricultural trade will be well known to you. We
acknowledge that the Brussels Summit Meeting under your
chairmanship saw a significant first step towards bringing
an end to the extravagant excesses of production of
agricultural commodities that have so distorted market
mechanisms. I know your Government sees special problems in winding back
the financial and other arrangements underpinning the Common
Agricultural Policy as quickly as we and other Cairns Group
nations would like. I can only emphasise that we see
further reform of the CAP, with a view to the elimination of
agricultural subsidies, as vital, both to the efficient and
fair operation of world agricultural markets and for the
health of the world trading system more generally. The
United States has just in the last day or so pledged its
support for a down-payment on the winding back of subsidies,
conditioned on their elimination in the long term. We are
therefore all looking to the mid-term review of the Uruguay
round of trade negotiations as an important opportunity to
embark on real reform. I was glad to hear this morning that
you also wanted a satisfactory result to the mid-term
review.
Mr Chancellor,
Our two countries share very many common ideals and values.
There are bonds of kinship between our peoples which we
continue to value highly. And there is scope for our two
countries to work more closely in the future.
Your visit has served to remind us of important past
associations and to awaken the prospect of a more active and
visible German presence in the Asia and Pacific region and
in Australia itself. we welcome that prospect and look
forward to an intensification of contacts at all levels in
the future. 2 11() I
6.
In particular, Mr Chancellor, I look forward to taking up
your invitation to visit the Federal Republic of Germany in
the middle of next year.
With that visit I hope to build further upon the impetus to
strengthen relations between our two countries provided by
your visit to us. We thank you for coming, we welcome you
and we wish you a safe return home.
240'