PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIMI MINISTER OF--AUSTRALIA
THE HOW R J L HAMME JiC Ia'
NATIONAL PRESS CLVB
WASHINGTON 26 JUNE 1.989
It is now almost four decades since Australia and the Unil: 6G
States signed the ANZUS Treaty. For all the immense changes
which have occurred a region remade, a world transformed
our alliance remains vital, relevant and contemporary. It
has done so, because both Australia and the United states
have creatively adapted the alliance to new imperatives and
new challenges.
An alliance founded on fear of immediate regional threat in
the Pacific the then recent memory in Australia of how
close we came to invasion by Japan -has taken its place as
part of the wider Western alliance directed at maintaining
global security.
An alliance conditioned by the early years of the cold war
now forms a framework for consultation and co-operation in
the emerging new era of reduced East-West tension.
Au alliance originally concerned with military containment
has taken on additional roles, including the underpinning of
arms control agreements between the superpowers.
An alliance founded, in the minds of many Australians, upon
deep apprehension of instability and uncertainty in Asia has
retained its relevance in a period of Asian dynamism,
development and prosperity.
An alliance which once had on its consultative agenda only
security and political concerns has become a forum for
discuss ion also of important economic issues.
An alliance which Australians initially saw as providing,
above all, an American commitment to Australia's security in
the event of attack, has become a vehicle for continuing
collaboration in support of our national policy of defence
self-reliance.
And because we have managed to keep the alliance
contemporary in these ways, our commitment to it has endured
and remains today unequivocal. And these are the reasons
why we host Joint Defence facilities; why we welcome United
states ship and aircraft visits; why we share in
intelligence exchanges; and why we co-operate in defence
procurement, training and exercising.
it is true very regrettably so that for the time being
at least, the third party to ANZUS, New Zealand, is no
longer an active partner. Its position . on ship visits will
have to change for it again to become one.
But my point is that as far as Australia and the United
States are concerned the alliance remains as vital and as
strong as it has ever been.
Ladies and gentlemen,
it is not just or most importantly the alliance between
Australia and the United States which is adapting to
fundamentally changing circumstances in the world. The
Western alliance generally, and especially NATO, is doing
so. This is as it should be, for the West as a whole now
has a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to look
beyond its traditional rationale of military defence and
deterrence against attack important though that remains.
The West can and must grasp new opportunities to achieve
security of a deeper and more enduring kind.
That concept of security has, I suggest, the following
elements: the improvement of East-West relations
the continuing quest for disarmament and effective arms
control measures
enhanced international economic co-operation and,
particularly, the replacement of shortsighted attitudes
by enlightened self-interest in international trade
international co-operation for the resolution of
conflict and the-harnessing of international effort from East,
West and the Third World to resolve issues vital to the
future of mankind, notably the protection of the
environment.
in each of* these fields Australia will play its part.
In East-West relations and arms control, the present
situation is qualitatively quite different from that which
applied at the time of the failed attempt at detente in the
19701s. Western policy failed then because, in seeking to
moderate Soviet international behaviour, it made no demands
for reform or the extension of human rights in the Soviet
system itself. That policy effectively only allowed the old
Soviet rulers to delay the inevitable reforms that Mr
Gorbachev has now undertaken.
But the pack ice of the cold war is thaing. A new, more
soundly based, detente is now open to us. This time it is
not a matter of trying to buy improved international conduct
from the Soviet Union and its allies. our role must be to
encourage changes in conduct which they themselves have
already decided, for reasons of their own self-interest,
must be made. Greater freedom, tolerance of a greater range
of opinions, a more honest way of looking at their past
history and their present problems these can be seen in
the Soviet Union, in Hungary, in Poland.
In these countries the requirements of economic reform the
recognition that the command economy cannot deliver the
goods are being accompanied by a heartening degree or
political reform.
I do not want to overstate this. The trend is not uniform
throughout Eastern Europe. Glasnost and Perestroika have a
long way to go. in China, the recent tragic and brutal
evets show that a l6adaL~ hiy Whl4lk jVuuu& OLd ftUU1Uuzuh
reform is nevertheless capable of supressing aspirations for
democracy in the most repugnant and, I believe, ultimately
futile fashion.
Nonetheless what we are seeing in different ways is
unambiguous evidence that the system of Marxism-Leninism and
of the command economy is being strained to breaking point.
Accompanying these domestic changes in the East we are
mwa'in mre conatructive international behaviour. 1 nave
said before that the West must insist upon deeds, not just
words. But deeds there have been in the INF Treaty, in
Afghanistan, in Indo-China and, only this week, in Angola.
For the West, what is required is firmness, patience and
courage. These qualities are fully demonstrated in
President Bush's dramatic and farsighted proposal for
conventional force reductions in Europe.
America's allies can and must play an important part in the
process of realistic arms control and reduction of tensions.
For our part, for example, Australia's sponsorship of the
South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone and our initiative against
the proliferation of chemical weapons in Southeast Asia
supplement our support for global nuclear non-proliferation
and a global ban on chemical weapons.
Our hosting of the Government-industry Conference on
Chemical Weapons in Canberra in September~ will give a
valuable stimulus to efforts to exorcise this opectre.
And in seeking to develop our own relations with the Soviet
Union, we will always keep in view the wider Western
perspective. Ladies and gentlemen,
The next factor I mentioned was the operation of the
international trading system. And here I have to say that
aspects of the Western performance in recent years leave
much to be desired. We must improve our performance if
international economic security is to be assured.
We have built our prosperity in the post-war period
essentially on the foundations of an open trading system.
It has brought tremendous benefits to Americans, to
Europeans, to Japanese and to Australians.
Yet the future of this system hangs in the balance. To
succeed in the current round of multilateral trade
negotiations would bring tremendous benefits. To fail would
be disastrous.
In this negotiation, Australia has many interests. But
pro-eminently our concerns and our hopes relate to
agriculture for it has been there, more than any other
sector, where distortions and irrationality have emerged and
have prevailed largely unchecked. I-. urge Upon Europe,
Japan, and the United States our major trading partners
with whom we generally enjoy excellent commercial relations
-a new approach to agriculture, one based, as I have said,
on enlightened self-interest.
Naturally, I focus in this forum on the United States.
to. -b
Australia recognises that the provisions of the 1985 US Farm
Bill and, in particular, export subsidies encompassed in the-
Export Enhancement Program were developed to counter the
incursions made by subsidised European community production
in world agricultural markets. Australia shares US concerns
about EC subsidy policies pursued under the Common
Agricultural Policy and for many years has been engaged in a
process of trying to limit the damaging effects of the CAP
on world agricultural trade. I expressed our very strong
objections in Paris and London last week-and will do so in
Bonn this week.
Australia recognises also that, in implementing the EEP, the
US has not intended to harm non-subsidising agricultural
exporters such as Australia.
Nevertheless, Australia has found itself in the crossfire or
the escalating export subsidy war and our grain exports have
been adversely affected. while the damage has lessened over
the past year or sop owing to lower world grain harvests and
a running down of stocks, there remains a danger that
competitive export subsidisation will again damage Australia
when grain surpluses re-emerge.
Australia is therefore disappointed that the United States
does not yet accept that the EEP has had harmful effects on
Australia effects similar to those resulti'ng from EC
subsidies provided under the CAP.
However, we have reached substantial agreement on the fact
that such distorting arrangements are, in the longer term,
damaging to international trade and that they all should be
on the table in the context of the Uruguay MTN Round.
This provides something of a breathing space for the US and
Australia on the EEP issue. The Uruguay Round is scheduled
to conclude at the end of 1990, when the us is also
scheduled to introduce successor legislation to the 1985
Farm Bill. The ZEP is likely to have a minimal immediate
effect on Australia up to the end of 1990 compared to the
earlier years of its operation. This is because wheat is inshort
supply globally, not least because of two successive
US droughts. World wheat prices are therefore relatively
high and the outlook is reasonably optimistic at least until
the end of 1990.
All this means that if we can achieve a successful outcome
on agriculture from the Uruguay Round by the end of 1990,
arnd, out of these negotiations, the US is able to look againat
the role of the EEP in its farm policy, then we may have
found a solution to this problem which exists between us.
That would be very welcome, for it has been a major problem
in our relations.
.0 ' t a L Vat) Z. 4 6 40
We must work closely together over the next 18 months to
keep national and international reform of agricultural trade
high on the international agenda and to work together on the
difficult task of achieving a successful outcome to the
Round. In case this sounds like special pleading, let me make this
wider point both Australia and the United States realise
that unless an acceptable outcome can be negotiated in the
Uruguay Round on agriculture, other sectoral negotiations in
the round wil11 be imperilled. All countries, whatever their
trading interests, will be the losers.
Ladies.-and gentlemen,
An in the security and arms control area which I mentioned,
in the economic area too Australia has tried in our regional
policies to support wider global objectives in this case a
fair and open international trading system.
one of the major features of the coming decade will, in my
view, be the continuing dynamic growth of! the economies of
the Western Pacific and South East Asia.
So, last January in Seoul, I referred to the desirability of
now taking new and practical steps to enhance economic
co-operation in this region. I suggested then the creation
of a consultative economic forum, which would continue into
the 909 and which would need to be serviced by modest
institutional arrangements.
I have in mind that Ministers from the South East Asia and
Western Pacific region, together with the United States and
Canada, should come together to discuss how best to advance
regional economic co-operation, and to explore how we may
build on the new economic interdependencies and new
opportunities which have arisen in this part of the world.
we have sought to develop this proposal carefully with our
partners in the region, on the basis of consensus and I am
glad to say that it has gathered an encouraging momentum.
During intensive consultations over the past couple of
months, we have found, without exception, general support
both for the concept that the time has come to advance
regional economic co-operation in a concrete way; and for
our proposal to hold an initial ministerial level meeting
later this year to pursue this objective.
I believe that, with political will, vision and leadership,
reservations which inhibited the development of similar
ideas in the 70s and early 80a will, as this decade draws to
a close, be dispelled. The time has come.
In case there are any lingering doubts in this country or
anywhere else I should stress, again, that what we are
proposing is not a trade bloc. The countries of the region
would not tou-ch this with a forty-foot pole, and rightly
The whole thrust of our overseas trade policy is based on
the need to work for the success of an open multilateral
trading system.
In referring to this Australian initiative, I wish at the
same time to make it absolutely clear that we want and
welcome the continued strong presence of--the United States
in the region political, strategic and economic.
As Pacific friends and allies we hope that the United
States, which has such strong economic links with the
countries of South East Asia and the Western Pacific, will
participate constructively in our initiative.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Today marks the 44th Anniversary of the signing in San
Francisco of the United Nations charter.
I know that there have been times when, in this country, the
UN has hardly been regarded as congenial to Western
interests.
But those days are past.
Not only is the United Nations playing a revitalised rolefor
example, in the Persian Gulf, in Namibia, in Afghanistan
and elsewhere. There are simply some tasks of such
universal importance, and of such universal character, that
they can only be accomplished in the spirit of genuine
internationalism, which was envisaged at San Francisco on
this day in 1945.
That is why I ref erred to the need to harness international
co-operation across the divide of ideology and across the
divide of economic development to tackle the threat to our
environmental1 security.
If one nation pollutes-the air or the oceans, or squanders
its irreplaceable legacy of forests or living species, that
is a loss not just for that nation, today, but for all
nations. Recently a great deal of attention has been focused on the
Antarctic because of the discovery of the hole in the ozone
layer above that continent. Let me draw your attention to a
pressing issue concerning what is one and beneath, the
surface of the continent itself the issue of mining and
oil drilling in Antarctica.
Australia has recently decided not to sign the Antarctic
minerals convention because we did not believe that it
provided proper safeguards against damage to this the last
pristine continent. We believe all mining activity in
Antarctica should be banned.
We seek instead a comprehensive Antarctic environment
protection convention and the creation of a Wilderness
Reserve. We do so, of course, within the Antarctic Treaty
System. Both our countries are foundation and active
members of this Treaty which has served humanity well for
more than a quarter of a century.
The principal objective of an Antarctic Environment
Protection Convention would be the conservation and
protection of Antarctica's unique environment and its
dependent and associated ecosystems.
Let me takce this opportunity, for the first time publicly,
to spell out the main elements I believe such a Convention
should contain
an agreement to protect Antarctica's environment and
ecosystems, fully respect its wilderness qualities,
respect its significance for regional and global
environments, and protect its scientific value;
a ban on mining;
in regard to other activities, arrangements which will
let us assess the impact of proposed Antarctic
activities or facilities;
a means of determining whether sufficient knowledge
exists to enable adequate impact assessment;
an agreement not to undertake activities where there is
insufficient knowledge to judge whether they are
environmentally sound;
and, criteria and standards to enable those judgements
to be made.
We have already received support from the French and Indian
Governments on this issue; and I very much hope the US
Government will, in time, lend its support.
Ladies and gentlemen,
There are many other issues of great interest to Australia
and the United states which, if time permitted, I would have
liked to discuss and which I will be further discussing with
the President, other Administration officials and members of
the Congress. But clearly in this forum I owe it to you to
allow you to determine the agenda, in the session of
questions and answers.
So I conclude these remarks with a reference to that stout
champion of the freedom of the press Thomas Jefferson.
in his first Inaugural in 1801, Jefferson stated as a
guiding principle for the Republic " peace, commerce, honest
friendship with all nations entangling alliances with
none". The imperatives of history, and of America's own destiny,
have involved the United States in many alliances -though I
trust the American people, at least in Australia's case,
find no sense of entanglement.
And indeed our alliance is only a means to those other goals
and principles set by Jefferson peace, commerce and honest
friendship.
Our friendship, our alliance, our capacity to work together
Ear from compromising Jefferson's laudable wider
objectives can positively contribute to a safer, more
prosperous and better world.