COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
SPEECH BY
The Rt. Hion. SIR ROBERT MENZIES,
M. P.,
ON
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
[ From the " Parliamentary Debates," 19th August 1965]
Sir ROBERT MENZIES ( Kooyong-
Prime Minister) Speaker, I must
say that I listened with great interest and
some pleasure to the remarks of the honor-
7j3 ble member for Fremnantle ( Mr. Beazley)
in relation to Malaysia, because I think that
this problem requires a. cool judgment and
a just appreciation of what has been done,
and with what he said on that point I find
myself in complete agreement. We have
hopes-1 hope that they are well foundedfor
a genuine co. operation between
Malaysia and the newly independent State
of Singapore. We have a friendship for both.
We wish them both well, but we do desire
above all things that on those matters on
which co-operation between them is of
great importance they will find it possible
to co-operate in the most effective way. I
do not desire to say any more . tonight about
Malaysia: although it could, lend itself to a
good deal of discussion because this debate
Dohaf s V* iceotnncaemn. t raHteedre , i tsaeglaf ina, roIu fnede l thuen dperr obsolemme
D little embarrassment because several
speeches have been made in the course of
this debate which stale so effectively the
essence of the matter that, coming as I do
tonight, I must feel that I am engaging in
tedious repetition. But, still, this is a matter
of immense controversy. I have been
challenged-I do not know why-more than
once to state the Government's position. I
10143/ 65 thought I had stated it pretty crisply. Therefore,
with great respect to my colleague the
Deputy Prime Minister ( Mr. McEwen) who
made a brilliant exposition of this matter
this afternoon, and others who have spoken,
I will just put it in my own way tonight
in the hope that I can say something reasonably
comprehensive.
The debate began as a debate by the
movement of an amendment by the Leader
of the Opposition ( Mr. Calwell). The terms
of.. the amendment are before honorable
members. I just want to refer to one or two
aspects. The amendment readsthis
House urges the Goverment-
I think this is what might be called -the
operative part of itto
strive for a cease fire now, to be policed
by a United Nations peace-keeping force, and for
a conference of all parties directly involved, including
representatives of both the Government in
Saigon and the Vietcong, to seek a -settlement
which will both end the agony of the Vietnamese
people and establish their right to choose their
own government.
My friend, the honorable member for
Moreton ( Mr. Killen) submitted this to a
somewhat devastating examination, I
thought, this afternoon but I must say
something on my own account. The first
part of the amendment is taken, of course,
from the Prime Minister's Conference. The
honorable gentleman must be aware of the
terms of the resolution carried at the Prime
Minister's Conference, and the setting up
by that conference-matter to which I
shall refer a little later-of a mission
designed to ascertain whether there was
some basis upon which a conference could
be held. To the extent that he adopts that
resolution, of which I was one of the promoters,
I welcome some bipartisan policy
on this vexed matter.
He speaks about the representation of
the Vietcong. I do not want to te dogmatic
about a matter of this kind because,
compared with some other aspects of this
problem, it is not the greatest of matters.
But : I would have thought that there was
some difficulty about having representation
of the Vietcong in such a conference, if
we obtained such a conference, because it
would seem to present difficulties of a kind
that would be inevitab: e in the case of
guerrillas who always work under cover and
are not always susceptible to conference.
Such direct representation would not be
necessary now, strictly speaking, because
what is the Vietcong? It represents
the hands which are ordered by the
voice of Hanoi. Do not let us forget that.
In any conference, if we were lucky enough
to get one, what Hanoi said would go with
the Vietcong. Make no mistake about this.
Therefore, it is with Hanoi, and behind that,
with Peking, that an effective conference
needs to occur.
Then, finally, the Leader of the Opposition
said, I thought rather piously, . that the
Vietnamese ought to be enabled to establish
their right to choose their own
government. That is, in one sense, although
not in every sense, what this war is about
-the right to choose their own government.
They will have no right to choose their
own' government-none whatever-unless
the aggressors are defeated, or unless they
abandon their activities. I would have
thought, that, in famous words, every school
boy would know that to ' be true.
I turn from the terms of the amendment
to offer a few observations on some aspects
of this matter which have given me great
occasion for thought and on which I have
arrived, I think, at clear views, and on
which I think I ought ta state those views.
A lot of people in Australia today-at any
rate, quite a few who write letters, sign
petitions, pass resolutions, or make speeches
somewhere or other-have as their theme: You must negotiate. They have a beautiful
antithesis here. You either negotiate or you
become involved in military operations.
You cannot do both. I have been accused of
over-simplification. About that one, all I can
say is: 0 sancta simplicitas You either
say: " We stand for negotiation", and do
nothing more about it, or you say: " We
want to negotiate but if the condition of
getting to the point of negotiation is to have
some fighting, then the fighting must be
engaged in". Yet these people keep on
writing letters, putting on rather anaemic
looking demonstrations outside Parliament
House and so on. They forget that negotiations
for peace can be usefully engaged in
only by the parties to the conflict.
Honorable members do not suppose, do
they, that two or three countries which have
nothing whatever to do with it are going to
have pleasant little negotiations and say:
" Now we have settled the argument."?
Therefore, the willingness of Hanoi-I use
Hanoi to describe the North Vietnameseto
negotiate is essential. Could anybody with
his five wits, or even with four, deny that
the willingness of Hanoi to negotiate is
essential? If Hanoi is not willing, no negotiation
can occur.
On 10th March of this year, the Commander-
in-Chief of North Vietnam, a very
considerable functionary, after demanding
unconditional withdrawal of American
forces-Hanoi was always putting it up as
a condition for negotiation-said the following
words which I emphasise--
The problem of the peaceful reunification of
Vietnam is the affair of the Vietnamese people.
So far, if I may say so, so good. He then
went on-
It will be settled by the Vietnam Fatherland Front
and the South Vietnamese Liberation Front.
This is brilliant. It would be settled by the
people, meaning the Communists-the
parent Communist organisation and the
son Communist organisation in South Vietnam.
This deserves to go down in history as
a classic of impudence, a classic of the
denial of justice-the kind of democratic
justice to which I would call the attention
of my friends on the opposite benches.
Mr. Michael Stewart, not a member of
my party, but a distinguished Labour
Foreign Minister in Great Britain, has no
ambiguities in his mind on this matter. He
made a speech on 1st April, and I think it is
worthwhile to recall what he said. His
comment was-
The House will notice in that statement-
He referred to the one that I have just
mentionednot only that North Vietnam is not thinking in
terms of conference and negotiation at all but that
the affairs of Vietnam are subsequently to be
settled exclusively by Communist organisations and
that by these principles-
These are Mr. Stewart's words--
no non-Communist in Vietnam would have any
chance of taking part in framing the future of his
country. This view, of course, is confirmed by North
Vietnam itself. When approached by the 17
unaligned countries, several of whom to my
direct knowledge as a result of conferences
are heavily disposed in favour of North
Vietnam, : because they wanted to seek
peace, the reply that . they received from
iNorth Vietnam-I would hate to call it a
dusty answer but it was certainly a dirty
answer-was that the internal affairs of
South Vietnam must be settled by the South
Vietnamese people themselves, in accordance
with the programme of the South
Vietnam National Liberation Front, without
any foreign interference.
I only need remind the House, because
I want to put this fairly comprehensively,
, that the ' National Liberation Front is a
popular Communist technique nowadays. A
National Liberation Front was established in
Thailand. In 1960, by order from Hanoi,
the National Liberation Front, which is
now a subordinate part of the central office
operating from Hanoi was established in
South Vietnam. Yet, in spite of having
received letters-not too many, but somen
spite of having read from occasion to
-, occasion, not too closely, some of the statements
made by various people, some of
them academic and some of them no
doubt intelligent, and in spite of having
cast my eye over these matters I have not,
from first to last, been able to discover any
pressure being put by any of these people
on Hanoi. All the pressure has been put on
the defending -countries like the United
States and ourselves whose great desire is
to achieve a just peace, protecting the
rights of all the people of South Vietnam
to self determination without external or
internal armed threat and, we would hope,
under some form of international guarantee. ' By a singtlar -feat of -mental . gymnastics
some , vocal people -in our own country have
worked -out some astonishing propositions.
I have noted these because I ' have ' been on
the ' receiving end of one or two rather
abusive remarks by people whose works I
had otherwise rather enjoyed. They put up
propositions along these lines: " If you believe
that Communist armed aggression in
and. against South Vietnam should be resisted
in the common interest, including our own,
by arms, then you. are the enemy of peace
All honorable members have heard it stated
that to us-or is it to peace" is
a dirty word. The basis of the statement is
that if you believe in the things that I have
just mentioned you are the enemy of peace.
But you have your choice. You have your
way of escape. If you abandon South Vietnam
and do your best to persuade other
nations, and, in particular the United States,
to do likewise, in the result you leave all of
South East Asia to its fate and then, believe
it or not, you are the friend of peace. This
is the new -series of propositions which a
lot of people, some of whom are well meaning,
! have been advancing. Clearly such
people are prepared to secure peace by
surrender or flight. In other words, they
want peace at any price.
Suppose the people and the Government
of Australia adopted these views. What
would . be . involved? l want to traverse this
with some care because I think that our
people have a right to understand exactly
what is involved. I repeat-what would be
involved? In the first place, we would need
to repudiate our obligations under
S. E. A. T. O. and A. N. Z. U. S. since each of
these pacts involves mutuality of obligations.
We have not heard much for some time
about S. E. A. T. O. . and A. N. Z. U. S. It used
to be rather a kind of parlour game in this
House to argue about S. E. A. T. O. and
A. N. Z. U. S. and what they mean. I hope
honorable members will forgive me if I
remind them and place on record consecutively
what they mean. In 1954 we
passed an Act of Parliament to ratify the
South East Asia Collective Defence Treaty.
The preamble to the Act was challenged
by the then Leader of the Opposition but
the challenge was not carried to a vote.
The challenge was that we had selected
Communism and had not extended the provisions
of the Bill to cover other forms of
activity. In any case, the preamble was carried
unanimously by both parties in this
House with no division being sought The
preamble is in these terms-
Whereas the independence and integrity of the
countries and territories of South East Asia and
the South West Pacific are threatened by the
aggressive policies of international Communism:
And whereas those Communist policies have
already shown themselves in Korea, Indo-China
and elsewhere by armed aggression, by armed
insurrection assisted from without and otherwise:
And whereas those Communist policies represent
a common danger to the security of Australia
and of the world generally and are a violation
of the principles and purposes of the Charter of
the United Nations
I have read sufficient of the preamble to
the Bill which was passed by this House
although, as I have indicated, it was
criticised by the then Leader of the Opposition
because it should have included a reference
to Fascism as well as to Communism.
There it is, now part of an Act of this
Parliament. Now let me turn to the Treaty.
I do not think any honorable member dared
to vote against the Treaty to which not only
Australia but also New Zealand, Great
Britain and Northern Ireland, the United
States, Pakistan, the : Philippines, Thailand
and France were parties. The preamble to
the Treaty is as follows-
Intending to declare publicly and formally their
-sense of unity, so that any potential aggressor will
appreciate that the Parties stand together in the
area. Article II of the Treaty, a very important
article, states-
In order more effectively to achieve the objectives
of this Treaty, the Partie:;, separately and jointly-
Let the House mark those words " separately
and jointly
by means of continuous and effective self-help
and mutual aid will maintain and develop their
individual and collective capacity to resist armed
attack and to prevent and counter subversive
activities directed from without against their territorial
integrity and politioal stability.
Could there have been in anticipation a
better description of what is going on in
South Vietnam and what, as I will show,
the Leader of the Opposition admits is going
on in South Vietnam? I come now to
Article IV of the Treaty. It reads-
Each Party recognises that aggression by means
of armed attack in the treaty area against any of
the Parties or against ar. y State or territory which
the Parties by unanimous agreement may hereafter
designate-South Vietnam was unanimously so designatedwould
endanger its own peace and safety, and
agrees that it-
Meaning each partywill
in that event act to meet the common danger
in accordance with its constitutional processes.
We, like the United States, have regarded
that Treaty as imposing upon us separate as
well as joint responsibilities. That is what
the Treaty provided expressly and clearly.
Later in the Article, of course-and I say
this only to complete the story-it was provided
that no action on the territory of any
such designated State-South Vietnam, to
wit-shall be taken except at the invitation
or with the consent of the Government concerned.
In the case of South Vietnam, of
course, this condition has been fulfilled.
So much for S. E. A. T. O. What is our
position under which was
ratified by an Act of this Parliament in
1952? The treaty itself states in Article IV-"
Each party recognises that an armed attack in
the Pacific area on any of the parties would be
dangerous to its own peace and safety and
declares that it would act to meet the common
danger in accordance with its constitutional processes. 19)
Then there is a very interesting article from
our point of view, Article V, which says-
For the purpose of Article IV an armed attack
on any of the parties is deemed to include an
armed attack on the metropolitan territory of any
of the parties--
That is, on Australia proper, to bring it
right homeor
on the island territories under its jurisdiction
in the Pacific-
In our case, Papua and New Guinea, for
instanceor on its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft
in the Pacific.
As the Pacific clearly means the Pacific
area, an attack on troops, American troops,
Australian troops, New Zealand troops, is
of the highest significance.
I say no more about that answer to the
question of what would be involved. I come'
now to the other answers to the question:
What would be involved if we did what we
are sometimes told we should do? The
second result would be that we would be
adopting a policy of isolation and neutrality.
There is no middle course here, just the
adoption of a policy of isolation and
neutrality, with, as a consequence, the
abandonment of any right to expect any
other nation to aid us in our own defence.
If it is good enough for us to be isolated
or neutral then it is good enough for the
other man, so far as we are concerned, to
be isolated or neutral. It would also involve
the further adoption-and let us face up
to this although it is -a hard choice or a hard
proposition-of a national policy in Australia
of unarmed pacificism or a defence
policy involving a . provi: iion adequate to
secure. our , country,, by our own efforts
against attack by any enemy, however
powerful and however armed.
One has only to state these matters-at
the risk of oversimplification as opposed to
overcomplication-to see that each of these
courses is unthinkable. Each of them would
be tantamount to national siUicide, and we
must therefore face the facts. The facts are
that we must honour our international
obligation, we must refuse to desert our
friends and we must pursue defence policies
: 9) esigned to enable us to make effective contributions
to the common defence against
Communist aggression. This policy, if it
needs explanation, is the one pursued by
my Government.
Of course we would all wish to see a
._ enuine peace conferenc: e, but what has
happened? At the risk of wearying the
House I just want to elaborate what my
colleague stated in admirably summary form
this afternoon. The document tabled by the
Minister for External Affairs ( Mr. Hasluck),
and which I hope will be read by all honorable
members, sets out the efforts that have
been made towards a peaceful settlement.
I say at the very beginning that the Conspicuous
feature of these efforts is that none
of them was made by Peking or Hanoi. Let
this be remembered by every person who
:, ilgoes to some meeting or teach-in or some
' sit-in, as one honorable member described
it-and wants to be gulled by a lot of
theoreticians. None of these efforts was
made by Hanoi or Peking.
When the United States in August 1964
took to the Security Council-and we hear
a lot about the United Nations and why
we should be approaching that organisation
-the Tonkin Gulf incident, Hanoi refused
to attend. The people in Hanoi said that
they had not started the trouble, and in
any event they refused to attend. They said
categorically-and they have stuck to it
ever since-that the matter of Vietnam was not within the competence of the Security
Council. Yet there are some honorable
members who bamboozle themselves into
believing that all you have to do is to take
the matter to the United Nations. Hanoi
had no truck with such ideas, contending
that the Vietnam matter was not within the
competence of the Security Council.
When the greatly respected Secretary-
General of the United Nations, U Thant,
wanted to visit Peking and Hanoi-and he
could not be represented as the humble
obedient servant of the Western bloc-in
April of this year, there was a contemptuous
rejection of any United Nations intervention.
Further approaches were made by the
United States, which also sought to promote
action by the Security Council. Peking
rejected such action in advance. It did not
wait for the action to be taken, but rejected
it in advance. It is very interesting to recall
that the United Kingdom proposed to the
Soviet Union that both countries, having
provided co-chairmen of the 1954 Geneva
Conference-a conference which some
honorable members have been saying should
be resumed-should invite the parties to get
busy and state their views. The Soviet reply
was a condemnation of the United States
and a demand for the withdrawal of the
United States forces from Vietnam, a
demand which I have not yet discovered has
been made by the Opposition, although I
will have something to say about that before
I conclude. Then the greatly respected Patrick
Gordon Walker, whom many of us know,
was sent out by the present British Government,
which is not of my political complexion,
to see whether he might bring the
chance of a conference with him. Both
Peking and Hanoi declined to receive him.
They would have nothing to do with him,
a man of the highest character and with the
most high minded desire to achieve peace if
possible. In April of this year ' President
Johnson said in a famous speech that he was
ready for unconditional discussion. Peking
and Hanoi made a reply in their exquisite
jargon, saying that this was a swindle pure
and simple. In May the Canadian representative
on the International Control
Commission, which some people have been
saying should be brought into function,
wanted to talk with the Peking and Hanoi
Governments. He was rebuffed.
Then at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers'
Conference-and I will say more about
that in a little while-a Commonwealth
mission was proposed and supported. . It -has
not succeeded in making any contact with
any of the Communist countries at all. Then
Mr. Harold Davis, a junior Minister, well
known to be very friendly towards . North
Vietnam and quite receivable, went off to
North Vietnam, having obtained a visa
through the kind instrumentality of some
North Vietnamese journalists. He went to
Hanoi. I have read the report that he made.
He was received quite affably by the people
who were not in charge, but he literally
was not allowed -to see any Minister or any
person in authority in. North Vietnam.
I have already referred ' to the attempt
made by the 17 non-aligned nations, some
of them far from unfriendly towards North
Vietnam and, perhaps, far from friendly
towards the United States. They met the
singular fate, which must have come as a
shock to some of them, of being described
by the Communist authorities as ' the Trojan
-horse of American imperialism. Well, I
have -heard so many , peeches against imperialism
by some of the people who have
now become described as the Trojan horse
that this shocks me; but it further exhibits
the fact that we are dealing with people in
the north who will insult their friends in
other parts of Asia or in Africa so long as
it enables them to maintain their campaign
to overrun, to tyrannis,' and . to destroy.
The President of India-I do not think
anybody would have suggested he was a
war-monger, unlike me--
Mr. James.-How true.
Sir ROBERT MENZIES.-You always
prefer the people of countries other than
your own, therefore I am bound to say that
you will agree he is not a war-monger, because
he is not an Australian. But the President
of India made an approach and
Peking's reply was that this was preposterous
in the extreme. ' When an unexpected
combination got together, India and Yugoslavia-
they are not identical politically,
Tito practicing his own form of detached
Communism-they were both rewarded for
their pains by being described by the people
whom the Opposition thinks it is simple to
get a conference with as the errand boys
of America. Now Sir, all -these events must surely convince
all Australians, who have not been
completely taken in by Communist propaganda,
of three things; first, that all peaceful
approaches to the aggressors are doomed
to failure while the aggressors think they
are ' winning or will win by force of arms;
secondly, that invoking the United Nations
in . this rather febrile way is at present quite
futile; and thirdly, that talk about -the
Geneva Accords or the International ' Control
Commission will be non-productive.
Now Sir, all -that, or most of it, describes
what has gone on elsewhere. But at this
last . Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference
we had something to say and . do
about this matter and I think I ought ' to
put it before the House and the people.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain, at
the very commencement of our meeting,
produced a plan for the setting up of a
mission consisting of Prime Ministers to
make contact on behalf of the Commor
wealth with the parties principally concernea,
with the problem of Vietnam and to ascertain
-whether some basis could be found for
a conference. Just let me remphasise this
point: The mission was not to negotiate. It
would have found negotiation difficult be
cause it contained within itself an immense
variety -of views, some being not dissimilar
from my own and some being not like my
own. They were a mixture. Therefore, the
whole , point was that the mission was to
see whether a basis for conference could
be found. That was an honorable task. The
mission was to go and talk to these people
and, without committing itself to any particular
view as . to the merits, see whether
there was some'basis for a conference.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain took
advantage of a talk that he and I were
having a day or two before to explain
his idea to me. He did that because, no
doubt, I happen to be, nowadays, the senior
Prime Minister. I considered the matter
overnight and, having reflected on it, I
told him that I would strongly support the
proposal. In the result, with some opposition,
but not much, the plan was adopted. The
mission was made up of the Prime Ministers
of Great ' Britain, of Nigeria, and -of Trinidad
and Tobago, and the President of
Ghana. Those men represented a variety
of views. The Prime Minister of Nigeria,
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, is a very distinguished,
and in my opinion, a very wise
man. The Prime Minister of Trinidad and
Tobago,, Dr.. Williams, is known, no doubt,
to quite a few of my colleagues, and the
President of Ghana is Dr. Nkrumah. As
the agreed final communique said-
We reviewed the various efforts which had been
made to achieve a peaceful s. olution.
This statement was made on behalf of
all of us-21 Prime Ministers, several of
whom had feelings disposed in favour of
North Vietnam. We had reviewed the
various efforts which had been made to
achieve a peaceful solution and I just
emphasise once more that it is worthy of
note that not one of those efforts ihad been
made either by Peking or Hanoi. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the Commonwealth's
mission has ncot succeeded in
making contact with either of these governments.
Yet, Sir, the statement of guidance
worked out by our conference exhibited a
easonableness which no nation with any
_. al desire for peace could have refused to
examine. I do not want to trench too much on the
time of the House and therefore I shall not
_ read all these passages, but I will take the
> portunity, Sir, with the permission of
, i'e House, to table the communique because
the. document. does contain the guide lines
which were worked out for this mission
-if the mission ever. got to. first base. While
the. aggressors are-conteraptuously rejecting
all peaceful propositions and pressing
on, with their evil activities, there is an
element in Australia which is, whether it
realises it. or not, conducting propaganda
directed. to, the desertion of South Vietnam
by the Americans and by the rest of us, the
grave weakening of South Vietnam's
/--efence, the abandonment of Thailand and
talaysia, victory for Peking and Hanoi and
the dramatic encouragement of Communist
influence and control even nearer to Australian
shores. The propaganda is directed
to these. ends whether people realise it or
I ask the Australian people who fully
realise the dangers involved for our own
country to understand the conscious or unconscious
objectives of muich of the current
agitation for the withdrawal of Australian
troops and therefore, presumably of
American troops, since to urge the withdrawal
of Australian troops and the retention
of American: troops would be a shocking incident in Australia's history. If that
agitation succeeded and South Vietnam were
abandoned, North Vietnam and its Communist
terrorists, the Vietcong, would of
course be vastly encouraged and aided; the
last lingering hope of peace negotiations
except on the basis of surrender to military
conquest would disappear; S. E. A. T. O. would
have failed, since the obligations under it
would, have been repudiated and other South
Asian countries would be left to fend for
themselves against overwhelming odds, and
the defence position of Australia would be
immeasurably weakened.
Dr. J. F. Cairns.-We have still got you.
Sir ROBERT MENZIES.-Yes, but you
almost cancel me out. Two other matters,
Sir, must be remembered. First of all, if
it is wrong for Australia to take an active
part in the defence of South Vietnam against
aggression, I wonder how it can be right
for us to take an active part in the defence
of Malaysia. against aggression. Is there
some lack of virtue in Indonesian aggressors
which does not apply to the Communist
aggressors? Where do the present agitators
stand on that matter? Perhaps they will say
that there is no aggression against South
Vietnam. All I can say-in a homely phrase
-is that they can tell that to the American
Marines. In the second place, victory for Communism
in South East Asia would not only
spell disaster and degradation to the millions
of people in that area who desire to be left
alone to live in peace and, with the aid of
more fortunate countries, develop their resources
and raise their own living standards;
it would,, in world terms, represent an
alteration in the world balance of power in
favour of the Communist powers and it
would so increase the risks of world war.
Sir, this needs great emphasis: As the
democracies have learned, retreat and
appeasement do not produce a true or lasting
peace. They give aid and comfort to
the aggressors. They hasten the day when
the aggressor feels able to strike on the
grand scale successfully. They encourage
future wars. They -do grievous harm to that
cause-the cause of peace-which their
advocates delude themselves into believing
that they are supporting. On any reasoned
view of this grim problem it is of course
not possible ' to attack the presence of Australian
forces without attacking the presence
of the United States and of other non-Vietnamese
forces. But does the Australian
Labour Party attack the United States presence
and actions? This is interesting to me.
It is very difficult to keep up with the Labour
Party because it is-as you might sayhere
today and gone tomorrow on these
matters of policy and, indeed, on all other
matters. But at least, I hope that occasionally
one must be able to read something
that the Labour Party says, and think: This
is it. The honorable member for Bendigo ( Mr.
Beaton) is interjecting. Listen to this; it will
do you the world of good. This may not
have reached you in the fastnesses of
Bendigo. A Labour Party information release
was issued on 18th February 1965. I
have the one I got. Optimistically it says,
on the last page: " Additional copies of this
statement may be obtained from the Australian
Labour Party's Federal Secretariat
on request". If the honorable member has
not had one I will pay the postage to have
it sent to him. I just want to quote what
this Labour Party, now so ambiguous, now
so defeatist, now so unreal, had to say only
in February of this year. I cannot read all
of the document, but it professes to be the
complete text of the resolution unanimously
adopted by the Federal Parliamentary
Labour Party Executive at its meeting in
Sydney on Thursday, ,' 8th February 1965;
and the Federal Parliamentary Labour
Party's Executive had before it the unanimous
recommendation of the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary
Party. When you have unanimity piled on
unanimity ' I suppose one may hope:
Roughly, this is what they believe The
first thing that I want to refer to is this
statement-In its statement to thio Security Council on
February 7th, reporting * he air strikes against
military installations in the south of North Vietnam,
America insisted th: at its object in South
Vietnam, while resisting a: ggression, is to achieve
a peaceful settlement maintained by the presence
of international peacekeeping machinery and that
it would not allow the situation to be changed by
terror and violence.
This statementsaid
this unanimous body-
-of American purposes is unexceptionable and
the case for the American action of recent days,
as based on the aim of shortening the war and
achieving a negotiated settlement, which would
establish and maintain the rights of the South
Vietnamese people, deserves sympathetic Australian
understanding. Nothing could be better. Later in the
course of the same document the same
people, unanimously, I suppose, unless
unanimity had faded away halfway through
the page, say this-and let everybody
remember this, because I think that really
if a lot of this is true we are almost on a
bi-partisan policy-
The demand of the Soviet Government for the
immediate departure of all American and other
foreign forces from South Vietnam would be in
the interests neither of the people of South Vietnam
nor the people of Australia. Its immediate
consequence must be a Communist takeover of
South Vietnam, snuffing out the hope of freedom
and the democratic independence of that country
and extending the area of Communist control
closer to this country.
I say to honorable members opposite: This
is not a lot of reactionary Tories speaking.
This is your crowd speaking-at least, last
February. The document continues-
The presence of those forces is necessary an-4-x
justified as a holding operation provided that
efforts are bent towards the objects set out b)>
the American Government in its message to the
Security Council. In other words, the presence
of these forces is justified as a temporary means
to an end and not an end in itself.
The object must be, at a proper time and in
circumstances enabling the people of South Vie
nam a free choice, to allow them to decide b.,
their own votes on their own government and
to ensure the physical independence of that government.
Sir, this is, I think, remarkable and worthy
of applause. I will undertake to say that it
is in the teeth of the views that will be
heard from one or two honorable members
sitting opposite, if there is any importance
to be placed on consistency. The Leader
of the Opposition who, I know, believes all
that himself-twisted and distorted by
recent events, but in his heait, of course.
he believes those th'ings to be true-earlie-'
this year when we had a debate said two
things that are very accurate and memorable.
He said-
That there has long been and still is aggression
from the north and subversion inspired from the
north, I do not for one moment deny.
( Later on he said-
The object of the Vietcong in the war-this
guerrilla war-is to avoid, as far as possible, direct
entanglement with massed troops in order that
by infiltration, subversion and terrorism, they may
control villages, hamlets, outposts and small communities
wherever these are most vulnerable.
These are brilliant and descriptive words.
I do not know how they disappeared from
the Labour Party's vocabulary, because in
the current debate my: honorable friend
the Leader . of the Opposition, under the
most terrible pressures: undoubtedly: and
obviously, instead of.. repeating these.. statements,
or anything like them, said of my
Government that we. proposed . to send. conscripts
to fight in a foreign land-that sounds
exactly like the, United States of: America
because we' are . defending . certain Vietnamese,
from'. certain other' Vietnamese. . O
what a fall was.-there,' my countrymen,
from . the robust statement -that ' here, was
aggression , from . the North and subversion
in the South, fomenled from : the. North;
to this'watery statement that, after'all, all
we'are doing is to defand some Vietnamese
from other Vietnamese. K
Then he made the most remrkable statement
I have listened to foi years. He said
that we are driving North Vietnam right
into the arms of China because we are
resisting the power of China. Of all the
Spusillanimous statements ever made in the
House, it must be the all time high. I do not
believe he thought of it. I do not believe
-he meant it. No man who said what he said
before could possibly produce such utter
Snonsense. The moral is: Do not resist China
and then you will not drive North Vietnam
into their arms; and do not resist North
Vietnam because it will save you a lot of
trouble, and who are the South Vietnamese
anyway? I suppose this astonishing proposi-
, tion would apply also to the United States
of America. That would be a reasonable
inference. On the basis that we want to
, leave it all to the United States, it would
be a reasonable inference. But the Leader of
the Opposition, coming back from this
excursion into fancy, goes on to say in this
very speech-
S The British presence in Asia is essential to
India, Malaysia, and Au; tralia, just as the United
States presence in this area is essential to the
security of the area.
Where do they stand? What is the policy or
position of this Party?
Before I conclude, I want to say a word
about the position of the United States. I
am satisfied-and I was confirmed in this
in my talks in Washington at one time or
another-that the American approach to
this problem is in reality just the same as
ours. No sane per; on--I emphasise the
word " sane"-could say that American
forces are being used in Vietnam for the
preservation of interests peculiar to
10143/ 65,-2 America. -Does any honorable member
oppositesay that? Speak up. Now is your
chance. Well, you do not say it. So far
we' are in agreement. I repeat: No sane
person could say that American forces are
being used in Vietnam for the preservation
of interests peculiar-to -America; for the
protection 6f American trade, or in pursuance
of some'other sinister' imperialist plot
to take over a'South East Asian' country.
Clearly,' the Ainericans arethere' to defend
a world order, the defence of which is the
prime purpose of the creation of the United
Nations,. and imposes duties upon every
member nation.
In Washington, on the 10th of this
month,' Mr. ' Dean Rusk, the distinguished
Secretary of State, was being interviewed.
He was asked what the commitment was to
South Vietnam. I will not read out in full
what he said. But he began by saying-
We have a very simple commitment to South
Vietnam. The first point he mentioned was-
It derives out of the South East Asia Treaty-
It is exactly the same view, honorable
members will observe, as I have indicated
tonight about the separate as well as joint
responsibilities. Mr. Dean Rusk mentioned
other matters. He went on to say-
Now, there is no need to parse these commitments
in great detail. The fact is that we know
we have a commitment-
This is the United States-
The South Vietnamese know we have a commitment.
The communist world knows we have a
commitment. Mr. Rusk continued-
Now, this means that the integrity of the
American commitment is at the heart of this problem.
I believe that the integrity of the American
commitment is the principal structure of peace
throughout the world.
But, Sir, true as that is, such defence cannot
be left to the United States alone. Let
me remind honorable members that the
American people, living at peace in a vast
and thickly populated country geographically
remote from South East Asia
would probably resent the notion that the
United States of America is the world's
policeman, and that countries like our own
can leave it to the Americans. The free
world has become so accumstomed to massive
aid going out from the United States
of America to. a score of countries that it
may sometimes be tempted to regard it as
commonplace and inevitable. But it is
neither. The United States has had its own
long periods of isolationism, twice shattered
in this century by world wars. It. is to the
immeasurable advantage of world peacepeace
without surrender-that ever since the
Second World War, the United States has
not only been the greatest world power but
also has handsomely accepted the responsibilities
which flow from great power.
The real enemies of world peace are those
who ignore or reject this central truth of
modern history and promnote hatred or
distrust of America at every opportunity.
Sir, there are some such in Australia, who
talk of peace as if the mere wish for. it is
sufficient, and -then attack its active protectors
as if they were the enemies of the very element which many of them are
shedding their blood and expending their
resources to defend.
This does not mean that Governments
like our own, which understand and
appreciate the American policy and action,
are -mere puppets moved by strings under
American control. We occupy a respectable
place in American thinking. We are, and
they so regard us, an adult community
with notable achievements and a great
future. We are quite capable of offering
our views, critical or otherwise, to Washington,
and we do it every week. But we make
no -apologies to our own people for niever
losing sight of the basic truths ' to which I
have referred, or allowing to be clouded the
common elements which lead us, as in
Vietnam, to common action. Km .9
BY AUTHORITY: A. J. ARTHUR, COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CANBERRA.