PRIME AUSTRALIA
TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, HMAS DARWIN, DARWIN
9 AUGUST 1989
E OE PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Have you got any indication at all from Mr
Palmer that he may back down on the frigates or-may
PM: I had a talk with him yesterday morning. He rang
me and I congratulated him on his appointment. I took
the first opportunity of reminding him of the importance
of New Zealand becoming part of the deal. So he's aware
of the position. He was before. I've reinforced that
position with him.
JOURNALIST: So it's just a matter of re-emphasising what
you'vye already said?
PM: Well, I couldn't make the decision for them. All
I can do is tell them how important we regard it and that
a decision not to be involved would, in my judgement, have
harmful effects upon the relationship.
JOURNALIST: Are you in awe of the power at your disposal
and under what circumstances do you imagine you'd use it?
PM: Weil, no, I don't tend to get awestruck. I am the
head of a government which probably as much as any government
in the world has committed itself to pursuing the processes
of achieving peace and disarmament. As we have understood,
and we continue to understand, if you're going to be in
a position to do that effectively those around you must
know of your commitment to ensuring the defence of your
own country. We'vye done that. And it is a defence position.
There is nothing offensive about this. There'll be no
inten~ tion on the part of my Government to use what is a
very considerable power that we have in any aggressive
way. So what we are doing at the same time as maintaining
our capacity is doing everything we can to create a peaceful
environment. JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you looking perhaps at
increasing naval strength in the north north of Australia
defence playing such a vital role these days?
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PM: Well, we have our forward planning which is based
upon the white paper that Minister Beazley conceived and
so brilliantly presented. And, as you know, we are about
the process now of undertaking two significant programs
that will enhance our naval capacity. One is the submarine
program and secondly of course the frigate program that's
already been referred to. Together with the conceptual
development of the move of a significant part of our capacity
to the west coast of Australia. So all these things will
mean that we are going to have an enhanced, more strategically
relevant naval capacity.
JOURNALIST: If there was to be though a third major base,
would that be likely to be based somewhere in the north,
like Darwin?
PM: That's hypothetical and I'm not going to that.
JOURNALIST: Did Mr Palmer give any indication of when
New Zealand will be making a decision on the frigates?
PM: No, other than he gave me the impression that it wouldn't
be too far into the future. But there was no specific
date.. JOURNALIST: Are you confident the Australian Defence Force
after Kangaroo 89 can defend Australia?
PM: Yes.
JOURNALIST: What about the AEWAC aircraft? How close
are we to perhaps looking at purchase of those?
PM: As I said this morning, we won't be purchasing the
sort of aircraft that I went up in today. When you're
talking about them you're talking about something like
a cool quarter of a billion dollars. We haven't got quarters
of billions of dollars to throw around for that sort of
capacity which in a sense is more sophisticated than we
need. It's more relevant to a European-North Atlantic
type of situation. We will be watching the sorts of developments
that are taking place in a number of countries which may
lead to the evolution of a significantly cheaper aircraft
with a capacity which is relevant to our requirements.
JOURNALIST: Could you be a little bit more specific about
how a decision by New Zealand not to join the program could
affect the relationship. What-sort of thing...
PM: I don't think you need to be very much more specific
other than to make the obvious point. That New Zealand
make a decision that it's not going to join in an acquisition
program which would enhance the capacity for interoperability
of our naval forces. It must have an adverse effect on
the relationship.
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JOURNALIST: Closer Economic Relationship. Mr Beazley
has previously said that you wouldn't use the
PM: The CER has its own momentum. I think this is an
attitudinal thing. It's nothing esoteric. I don't know
why one has to spend more than 30 seconds upon this stating
the obvious. If a country with which we have gone out
of our way in the period since they effectively severed
their ANZUS relationship we've gone out of our way to
increase defence cooperation with them it seems obvious
that if in regard to a project like this which is very
relevant to our capacity to project our naval forces in
the region, if they're not going to be part of that then
it must obviously have an adverse effect on the relationship.
As I say, it's that damned obvious that I don't intend
to take another second talking about it.
ends