-I L SOVIET EXPANSIONISM MUST BE KRSIST_\
( Extract from an address by the Deputy Prime M inisto' nd It:' cr
for Trade anid Resourc s, the Rt Hon. J. D. Anthony
Wi'. ne I i ; try i'ieJ. d D. y c'giii.. S. I by tLhne i. L Vaicy V y'.
Association and the N. S. W. Department of Agriculture at
Rothbury Estate, Pokolbin Friday, 18th January, 1980.
One of the things that has been very much on the
Government's mind in the last few days has been our relations
with the Soviet Union.
Trade between Australia and the Soviet Union is
getting to the point where it runs about 70 to one in our favour.
To some people, this might be the over-riding consideration.
There's no need for me here to go through all the
implications for our relationship of current events in
Afghanistan except to say that the Government is very deeply
concerned about what has happened in that country, and about
the course of events in the future.
What this fresh focussing of interest on the Soviet
Union does is remind us that'there are ways of life and
systems of government very different from our own.
We are reminded that our people and our industric
exist and operate under regimes that differ vastly from those
of some other coun: ries.
Our agriculture, for example, is affected quite
directly not only by the weather, but by the economic airv
political systems under which it exists.
In free-enterprise societies like ours, people know
that they can apply their skills and their initiative, use
their capital and their physical strength, to embark on
enterprises which, if they succeed, will bring them rewards
of many kinds. They know they are free to take risks, to be stimulated
by the incentive of likely rewards.
But in a country like the Soviet Union, things are
very different and we ought to remember that they're different.
Certainly Russia's harsh climate is a big burden on
its agricultural industries, but I think the Soviet Union's
political and ecolnom: ic system is an important factor, iin Lhat
country's failure to keep pace with the wesiern nat: ionri in
agricultural ind other development.
From what I've seen in the Soviet Union, and fro-my
reading, I've gained the impression that the Soviet systcm of
sociali. 3m is the fundamental cause of the sluggishness, the
ponderousness, the inefficiency of the Soviet economy. / 2
One shudders to think how the wine industry's
enterprising moves into the development of the tourist business
might have fared under the inadequacies and stultifying influence
of a Soviet-style system.
The point I'm making to: lay is t Lli, Sov . ieL t-: i
comcs out very badly in a comparison with our own.
We have a political and economic system, and a way of
life, that are worth safeguarding.
We have a responsibility to do whatever we can to
resist the efforts of the Soviet Union to impose its will on
others. We must understand that the Soviet Union is determined
to expand its influence and its control and its inefficient
system. These ambitions clearly are reaching into the regions
of the world of which we are part, and we cannot ignore what
is happening. We face greatly changed international circumstanres
as the Soviet Union pursues its aims, and Australia must. ( do all
it can to prepare itself to respond to those changed circums'tances
as sensibly and realistically as it can.