PRIME MINISTER
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH TO ALP LUNCH, SEAGULLS
FOOTBALL CLUB, TWEED HEADS 17 AUGUST 1990
E OE PROOF ONLY
PM: I think you would expect me perhaps to say something
about the international context and I do it because, this
morning for instance, shown on television some people
who were expressing dissent, opposition to the recent.
decisions that we've taken. It would be useful, it seems
to me, just to spend a little time sharing with you my
thinking about what Australia should do in the
circumstances with which we're currently confronted.
I have said that the decision that I took after
consultation with some of my Ministers and with others to
despatch three of our ships to the Gulf area was the most
serious decision I think that I've had to take since I've
been Prime Minister. Paradoxically, while it was the
most serious, in the end it was not a hard decision
because the principles, I believe, are clear.
For me the intellectual setting was clarified by the fact
that recently I've had a rare opportunity to engage in
some personal reading, because normally the official
paper that floods across my desk takes virtually all my
time that's available. But because I had a little bit of
time in hospital in recuperation recently I had some time
available to do some personal reading. I took the
opportunity to read a massive two volume biography of
Winston Churchill written by William Manchester a
magnificent piece of biographical writing.
It's all interesting, but for me the part of that
biography which stuck most clearly in my mind was the
story of the tragic events of the 1930s. After the
Second World War there were the Nuremburg Trials at which
the Nazis were put on trial. After you've read the
biography of Churchill by Manchester you come to the
conclusion I think that I did that there should have been
two Nuremburg Trials. There should have been the trials
of the Nazis and there should've been the trials of the
appeasers. Because without both of them, without both of
them you couldn't have had the Second World War.
The Second World War resulted from two things. From the
evil and the tyranny of the Nazis who believed that might
was right, that one nation could swallow and destroy its
neighbours with impunity. That was one element-of the
tragedy of the Second World War. But the second-was the
weakness, the preparedness of other nations, and
particularly those with a major responsibility, to allow
it to happen. And when you read that biography, the
tragedy is that you see that at the very time that Hitler
made his first move into the General's staff, the
German army had made the decision that they were going to
depose Hitler, and they'd made that decision on the
assumption, the belief that Britain and France were going
to move against him. And if that had happened, as it
should've happened, then Hitler would've been deposed and
the infinite, immeasurable tragedy of the Second World
War would not have occurred.
It was in the knowledge that this was the truth of
history that I knew that we have now entered one of the
most optimistic phases in the whole of human history. In
my life I have witnessed the tragedy of the Second World
War to which I've referred. I've also witnessed the
ominous terror that has gripped so much of thinking men
and women that we have been for so long in the post-war
period on the edge of the nuclear abyss, that the
threatening, turbulent relations between the super
powers, Soviet Union and the United States accumulating
the means for the obliteration of mankind from this
planet in those massive nuclear arsenals, to threaten our
very existence on the face of this planet. But we have
now seen that due to intelligence and sensible
commitment, within the Soviet Union and the United
States, that that threat has been very very substantially
diminished I think to the point of elimination.
And so, there is a very especial obligation upon the
world community in this new era of the elimination of
that bipolar threat, the great obligation upon the world
community to make it clear to every nation that the world
is not going to tolerate action where a large nation can
swallow up its small neighbour and do it with impunity.
Those principles are clear and if we don't as a world
community accept that commitment then we will not be, as
a world community, taking advantage of the great new
opportunities for constructive development that have been
created by the intelligence in the relationships
between the super powers.
My friends, no-one hopes more devoutly than I do that the
potential conflict in the Gulf area will be avoided
because I and my colleagues in Government have spent
seven and a half years devoting ourselves to stimulating
the processes towards peace and disarmament. So we hope
that the exhibition of the commitment of so many nations,
including amongst the Arab nations, will lead to the
conclusion on the part of Suddam Hussein that in the
interests of his own people, as well as the interests of
the people in the region, that he should withdraw. And if
in fact Iraq has concerns about its relationships with
its neighbour, then let those concerns be the subject of
negotiation and mediation. That's the way to settle
disputes between people. It's the way to settle-disputes
between nations. in the 20th Century we have been
witness too much to the insanity of war and the tragedy
of war and we must understand that war has to be avoided
and that the concept of acquisition of territory by naked
force is unacceptable.
So my friends, I trust and hope that by the time those
three ships reach the Gulf area that sanity will prevail,
or will have prevailed and if it does then I believe in
some small way the actions that Australians have taken
will have been part of that process. Too many Australian
lives have been lost in two wars in defence of the
principles of the right of self-determination and the
right of individual nations to live in peace without the
threat of conflict. Too many Australian lives have been
laid down by previous generations for this generation to
forsake that principle.
I trust that our determination together with that of
others and now so many other nations will mean that that
conflict will be avoided. I trust that the people of
Australia fully understand the commitment and the
principles which have guided reaching that
conclusion. ends