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PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BY TUE PRIME MINISTEKt THE HON J. KEATING, M. P.,
STATE DINNER. DUBLIN CASTLE, DUBLIN, IRELAND
SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER, 1993
Taoiseach, Mrs Reynolds, Kathileen, our distinguished Ambassador from Australia,
Terry McCarthy and Margaret McCarthy, distinguished leaders of Ireland, both past
and present and distinguished ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much for the warm welcome, Taoiseach, and the warm welcome
particularly from all of you. Its always said in Australia that the warmest welcome
you can have around the world is in Ireland and at first hand Annita and I had tha
experience this evening. We appreciate very much that warmth, the generosity, the
sincerity and the fact that so mnany of you have done us the honour in coming this
evening. It's a great pleasure for someone of my background to come to Ireland in any
capacity, but to come here as Prime Minister is even a more singular honour than
simply coming as a visitor, because one comes representing the Australian nation and
one comes with the thought in one's mind of those great traditions and shared values
which we in Australia have with you the people of Ireland.
So Itfs great to be here and no better day than the grand final of the Gaelic football,
because just an hour off the plane I was trvatc4 to a pageant and It's the only football
stadium in the world, certainly the exception from Australia, where a politician is
warmly received. And I know I was beside such a popular fellow and that's why I got
the claps. I'm sure if I wasn't with you, Albert, there would have been no clapping at
all, but the fkct is that is was warm; and when the band broke to the strains of
' Waltzing Matilda' and the crowd sang the words of that famous Austraan son&, I
couldn't help but be deeply touched by that great sense of kinship betwee us and that
understanding of Australian values,
Those Australians values: support for the underdog, had me barracking for Deny all
through the day. And they are strong right to the e4d and that last ten or fifteen
minutes showed their great athletic form, but rm a member of an Australian rules
football club, which has also been the unedoS club. A great working class club, one
of the great sports clubs of Australia the Collingwood Football Club. And it had
not won a premiership since 1958 and being a Sydneysider of course Fin not a
member of a Melbourne football club. but I joined bcase I could only join the
underdogs club and the year I joined they won the flag. They won the premiership.
7
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So there are great similarities between Gaelic football and Aussie rules, as the
Taoiseach said. No doubt we're sharing a gene pool, somewhere, because the
contortions and the athleticismn and the bounce and the ball control and all of the other
things which are so common , which we saw there today are conmon to both games,
so there's no doubt, for certain, the Irish have influenced Australian sport in terms of
Aussie Rules. So it was a great game, it was more than a game, it was a pagean. To
we all those flags and that great roar when the two teamns came onto the field and then
the singing and the enormous spontaneity of support for Deny at the conclusion was
indeed something to behold. And as visitors, Annita and I were charmed that as an
introduction to this official visit to Ireland we were able to go to Croke Park today.
Thank you Albet, thank you one and all for that rare privilege.
Australia, of course, has an unbroken relationship with Ireland going back a couple of
hundred years but as the Taoiseach said, we are very different countries now.
Australia is very much a multicultural country While, I suppose, Ireland is probably a
more a monocultural country. But, that said, for all the differences the shared values
and traditions and history ame still there. The Taoiseach took you through those
statistics about Irish inumigation to Australia, there is no doubt that Australia is the
most Irish of all countries outside of Ireland. It mightnt have had the absolute highest
numbers of people fronm Ireland settling in Australia, but it had the highest proportion
of any group settling anywhere in the world. And it~ s had an enormous influence on
Australia, on my country, at every stage of its history, and because the Irish arrived
early, relatively early In Austrlias history, in my case, my family in the midnineteenth
century, in the 1950s, we had the opportunity of having an impact on the
whole society.
So, rather arriving as of late, as was the cam with Irish immigration, say to the United
States, the Irish permeated all Australian culture. As the Taoiseach said, through the
professions, through teaching, through education, through literature. through the axts
pervasively across our country, and of course most obviously in politics where talking
18 required of course the Irish have always done so well. They're great talkers, they're
passionate talkers, passionate people, and so where there were not natual barriers,
where there was an open opportuity, of course, their great sense of passion and skill
excelled. And so. the Impact was so broad across the whole nation and across the
wholo society and as a consequence the Labor Party was in many respects influenced
by the great democratic traditions of Ireland, that sens of nationhood, folklore,
egalitarian values, values of fainess and values of decency.
And if's had a greater impact on my Party than any ideology, any ideology that we
could speak of, and there were many of them in the late ineteenth century and they
had a big impact in the twentieth century, but none greater than that Irish sense of
nation, folklore, egalitarianism, what we now call In Australia the ' fair go'. One of our
former leaders, Arthur CalwclL, who led the Labor Party, said the Irish were among
the great colonisers of the world, but not among the imperialists, the exploiters or the
conquerors. And that, of course, is so absolutely true. He said they brought their
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culture and their virtues with them to enrich the heritage of whatever land they chose
to dwell in. That's a vcry large accolade but a true one.
I'm looking forward to the next couple of days as I rarely look forward to anything.
The Taoiseach has said,-wc have our formal discussions but as well as that, apart from
getting to know Dublin better, and having the opportunity of speaking at the Dail, I'm
also having the opportunity to see rural Ireland and Tynagh in Galway, from whence
my famnily came. And I was deeply moved and very honoured tonight that so many
members of the Keating family fromn Galway have come tonight. I'm looking forward
to seeing them and to meeting them in Tynagh in the next day or so.
But before I do that, of course, we do have a chance to discuss our relationship. As
the Taoiseach said, we have more in this relationship than so far we have taken from
it. There's so much warmth and generosity And good feeling between the Australian
nation and the Irish. And I hope this blossoms into a larger economic relationship
than so far we've been able to manage. it's true for many nations that their sons
and daughters, as they've gone to other countries, have managed in some ways to
build a tight relationship which has had social and economic manifestations. We've
had the social but not much of the economic. This is not entirely true of ; ourse
because we are now doing it much more than we've ever done and Australian
companies are now developing In Ireland and Irish companies arm developing in
Australia. And some very famous ones among them who are represented here
tonight. But we need to do more, becuse I think there's a very natural backdrop
there for the Irish doing business In Australia, and I know with the opennms
and warmth of this relationship for Australians doing more in Ireland.
The Taiosech said we've got things to settle in world term and we have. We've
got te GATT round now about to complete after seven years, to provide for what
all of us widlget most and that is to provide a really good backdrop for multilateral
trade. The thin that lifted the Income3 world wide in the post war years for
countries, great countries WiJka pan and Germnany was a firee trade in goods. We're
now tring to do that in servioes, in intellectual property rights and in agriculture.
And that guarantees us the best opportunity ever to actually participate in the world
and through the velocity of trade lift incomes world wide so that we can have a
period of wealth and growth In prospec unparralleled at any time because In the
world today we've lant seen the world lik this before the First World War, with
great nations reJoining the world economy and society like the old Soviet Union,
R~ ussia and the States of the Commonwealth of Independent States. And China and
India and South America, who are now in the world economy as they've never been
in the post war years. Soif we get this rightin the GATT, we can turn this world
into a place wher incomes really do go up sharply andi where many disadvantaged
societies open themselves up to some bounty and advantage.
Now, in Europe, of course, Ireland's focus has been In Europe and on the
Community which is entirely natural and good and correct, as Ausftralia's has bee
ItL--4.
in the Asia/ Pacific. But, these opportunities abound for us but nothing greater tha
the wider one of an international agreement on trade and servies and agriculture
etcetera. We'll both go our ways in our respective areas of the world, In the Asia
Pacific with this enormous weight of population and this huge rate of growth. It's
not just for us to participate in but also for countries like Ireland as well, as we are
participating in the European Community. So I look forward to discussing these
things with the Taloseach in the next day or so.
The other thing we have In common is the blight of Wnmploynnt, and this is the
thing I know which touches the hearts of the people of Ireland, as it does the people
of Australia. We're determined that we will not consign a generation of young
people to unemployment, that wc won't accept the damage, the generational damage
of a generation Impacting on the fabric of our society, with unemployment. And
we're in a world today where, through higher productivity and mechanisation we're
getting more output from fewer people. But we can't be content to say we live in a
more productive world, we're getting more output from fewer people. We have to
say therefore we must produce mre products that means we mnust grow more
quickly. And that means we have to deal with idfltion and all these other things in a more
novel way. Now we've done it in Australia with a wonderful accord between the
Australian trade unions, and this governmen and I ) now in your country this is
your hope too. That is, to develop a long standing relationship with your trade
union movement so that there is a national commitment and consensus to growth
and to employment, so large numbers of people are not left unemployed, bearing
the brunt and carrying the load themselves, of economic change and productivity so
that only those who are unfortunate enough to be unemployed should Oanv the
burden and of course, most particularly the young.
This we can never accep. Blecause if equality, and fairness, and egalitarian values
start In any place, they start withgWp-Lojqnent-The way in our socetes you get a
piece of the action is through employment. And we can never accept high levels of
unemployment as part of, " Well, that's that, we have have to live with it." We can
never have a bar of that attitude. So we're now looKing at novel ways to deal with
unemnploymfent. We've got a task force looking at our experience and hoping to pull
something novel from it and I know that you're thinking in the same termns too. and
lt's hope we can share somne experienc there.
The Taloseach mentioned Mary Robinson's visit to Australia last year, it was, I
think, one of the most succesfal tripsiby a Head of State In recent timnes. And for
Australians, I think, a persuasive Illustration of how a Head of State can be an
ambassador for her country and for her people. I enjoyed very much that visit. It
gave Afuter expression to this great relatiowNsp which we have togeter and
reminded so many Australians of the democratic values and traditions of Ireland
I2 L1L.. Sep. 935 b: 46 NO. UU4 r. uq'UD
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which were expressed in your President and expressed by your President while she
was with us.
I know at the moment she's In New Zealand, back down in the Antipodes. a long
way from here. And no doubt having the same impact there as she had with us.
So, she Invited me here but I'm pleased to say she's there doing her good work in
the Antipodes. while I'm here, trying to do zine. So Taioseach, ladies and
gentleman, It gives me very great pleasure to remember your President's visit to
Australia. To remember, with it, the great warmth in that relationship. Again
visible here tonight in the warmth of the welcome you've given my wife and
myself. And so can I propose a toast to the President of Ireland and the people of
Ireland and to another two hundred years of Irish Australian friendship.
The President and the people of Ireland.
Thank you.
Ends.