PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, PAN PACIFIC HOTEL, 24 OCTOBER 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Margaret Thatcher said she was appalled at your
attack on her in the session yesterday. They're very strong
words. What's your reaction?
PM: Yeah, they are strong words and they' re inaccurate. The
facts are quite simple, that we put our position in the full
session before going to Langkawi. My Foreign Minister and her's
were there in the negotiating session dealing with the draft that
was to come to Heads of Government. As I said concessions were
made by us and by others there and there was a clear
understanding on the part of everyone at the retreat that
agreement had been reached in the clear terms and then on Mrs
Thatcher's motion, that was accepted. After that having been
done and Mr Mugabe for instance being cut short and amendments he
was proposing on the basis that Mrs Thatcher said look, there is
no need to argue this, we accept it. Now, when there was a
position after that of repudiation of the agreement arrived at,
then as far as I was concerned that could not be let to be passed
in the full conference when we returned. I put that point, fully
supported by Mr Mulroney. I believe that Mrs Thatcher has
subsequently said that we were the only two to speak. She
attempts to draw some conclusion from-that. The fact is, that
every other, every other Head of Government supported the
position put by Hawke and Mulroney. Every other one of them.
JOURNALIST: She says your attack was futile too.
PM: Well, all I can say is if you judge by the normally placid
British press, that is, placid towards Mrs Thatcher, you could
hardly draw that conclusion. The British press have rightly
drawn the conclusion that the behaviour of their Prime minister
was less than adequate. I mean I'm not getting into vicious
language. I'm not getting into an attack on Mrs Thatcher because
we consistently play this game inside the conference. We don't
come out and say: wins, losses, someone knocked down, someone on
a pedestal. We've never played that game. We've left that to
others. I notice that it was in the British press that the first
proposition was major victory, as it was put, for Britain. Now
everyone knows, every single journalist here knows that that is a
load of codswallopl
JOURNALIST: Did you
-2-
PM: And the fact that it is a load of codswallop, I think has
led to some of the subsequent behaviour of Britain, because when
it was realised that the interpretation that they'd put out, that
they had won a position and turned the Commonwealth around, when
everyone realised that that was a manifest nonsense, then the
media understandably, had some things to say. And then there was
some attempt I think to backtrack or retrieve ground by Britain.
Now that's their business. All I'm saying is that we conduct our
affairs inside the conference. We don't seek to lambast
afterwards and say there's been wins or losses. I do get a
little bit annoyed when there is this really rather grievous
misrepresentation of what everyone else knows are the facts.
JOURNALIST: She's also suggesting that you in some way ambushed
her with the five-point plan, that at the breakfast meeting there
was no mention of the plan and then several hours later that it
materialised. PM: Well this is a nonsense of course. I had John Bowan there
with me, she had a person and I said: well we'll be talking
about South Africa and we had a general discussion about it and I
said we'll obviously have differences on this, we can't agree on
it; our differences are well known and that was it. We were in
the process of finalising our formulation there was no
obligation on us to say this is precisely a plan that we' re
putting. It was a clear understanding between us, having
discussed the matter, that we were going to have different
positions. JOURNALIST: With hindsight would it have been better to have
drawn her into that process?
PM: There was no way, there was no way you could draw her into
it. Did you think that if I said to Mrs Thatcher: look
Margaret, I'm going to be, here's the details of what I'm
putting, I'm telling you that I'm going to be in favour of
increased financial pressures if something more is not done by
South Africa. I mean, her position is known. I respect it. The
attitude I adopted in the breakfast meeting with her was one of
respect. In other words, it's not as though we were coming de
novo to this issue. We had traversed the ground, we knew that we
have had difference of emphasis. I said to her we will have
different positions on this.
JOURNALIST: Has she betrayed your trust then?
PM: No, no, no. There is no betrayal of trust.
JOURNALIST: The South Africans have taken comfort from Mrs
Thatcher.' s stand. Do you find that offensive?
-3-
PM: No, no. The question of Mrs Thatcher's position on South
Africa is for her and who draws comfort from that is also a
matter, in a sense, for her and those who do the drawing of
comfort. The position is, and really in the end you get down to
this: that of the whole Commonwealth, the whole Commonwealth,
the Commonwealth has said: we embrace and endorse Hawke's
position, and that's been what's done. There is one person out
on that and I just think as a matter of logic and of reasonable
intellectual assumption, it's just a fair possibility that the
Commonwealth as a whole minus one, may be right.
JOURNALIST: Are you disappointed, Mr Hawke, that the CHOGM had
to end so acrimoniously?
PM: Well, I mean I don't accept that it has ended acrimoniously
as far as the Commonwealth as a whole is concerned. There is one
member of the Commonwealth who apparently is expressing some
upset at the fact that the rest of the Commonwealth has taken a
view about its behaviour. Now if you have 99 per cent taking a
view unanimously and effectively and you have 1 per cent saying
that they don't like what's happened, then I don't think that
that's acrimony. I mean, it is better described as one being out
of step.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke you've used the meeting to put a plug for
the Melbourne Olympic Games. How has that gone?
PM: Well, in my bilaterals, I've said to people that Melbourne
is very, very well placed to handle and conduct the Olympics in
1996 and there's been, I think, a fairly favourable reaction to
that.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister can I ask you one other question
about the communique does the wording of the communique mean
that Australia now supports the idea of mandatory repatriation of
Vietnamese boat people, because the communique makes no reference
to voluntary repatriation.
PM: Well the wording of the communique is essentially no
different from the June Conference in Geneva on this matter.
Australia's position hasn't changed on this. We've got a
position which the essentials of it are: it is recognised by
Australia and other people that we'vye moved from a position where
people were political refugees to essentially where they' re
economic refugees and that creates a whole different ball game.
You can't expect either countries of first asylum or resettlement
countries to have the same position towards people who are simply
economic refugees saying that they don't like in economic terms,
the regime, and are looking for somewhere else, better in
economic. terms.
-4-
In those circumstances, the question of repatriation assumes
different proportions and you've got to be looking at them going
back. That was recognised at Geneva. It was recognised in the
language here today.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, it's the last day of CHOGM, would you like
to sum up how this one's gone and where it leaves the relevance
of the Commonwealth as an institution?
PM: There obviously can't be any question about the relevance of
the Commonwealth. I don't think there ever has been. I mean
just lets look at it in terms of some of the things I talked
about today. Where is the Commonwealth meeting going to be held
next? It's going to be held in Zimbabwe. How has Zimbabwe
emerged as a sovereign independent nation in the world? It
emerged through the processes of the Commonwealth. The
Commonwealth was uniquely placed to handle what was a potentially
disastrous situation there in the dismemberment of what had
previously been Rhodesia. It was uniquely the capacity and the
influence and the processes of the Commonwealth which brought
that potential tragedy to an end and has Zimbabwe emerging as an
independent nation. It's therefore in a sense very, very
appropriate that the next meeting should be held there because
Zimbabwe is living proof of the relevance and the capacity and
the uniqueness of the Commonwealth.
Here at this meeting I think it's been particularly useful, if I
can put it from Australia's point of view and I think also the
interests of the Commonwealth as a whole. Obviously firstly, you
go to South Africa. Now you've heard-' me quoted before on the
statements coming out of South Africa itself on this issue.
There can be no intelligent argument on this because you have the
Minister for Finance, the ex-Governor of the Reserve Bank saying
the two things that I've mentioned: one, that the sanctions have
imposed intolerable strains and constraints on South Africa's
economic development and secondly from that, it is imperative in
their judgement, that to deal with that economic constraint they
must change the political situation. So we've seen again the
Commonwealth committed to an intensification of this situation,
not as I've said for the sake of sanctions as such, but to keep
the pressure up to bring the South African regime to the
negotiating table. So there, as the results of the Commonwealth
action in the past, been demonstrated and the commitment to
continuing those processes.
Secondly, of course you have uniquely now, the Commonwealth Plan
of Action on the Environment. At the initiative of a developing
country here, Malaysia, that we were able to get a unanimous
position which will mean not just some pious statement, a
collection of words, but a commitment to interchange knowledge
and technologies within the Commonwealth, which means that those
of us who are fortunate enough to be more developed, to have
experienced new technologies which are relevant to a range of
environmental issues and concerns, pledging ourselves to share
those technologies, that knowledge with those countries in need.
A very dramatic, practical illustration of the unique capacity of
the Commonwealth to be relevant to issues of vital concern.
Then of course, on the issue of Cambodia, a confirmation of the
position of Australia and the ASEAN states and fourthly, on the
Uruguay round, picking up on the economic part of the communique
the importance that the Commonwealth attaches to the Uruguay
round being successful. I think the Commonwealth countries are
going to be able to play a role in now pressing ahead in, this
decreasing amount of time we've got, because the round finishes
at the end of next year, the Commonwealth commiting itself to
play its role in freeing up and liberalising international trade.
In addition to those issues of course we had a recognition in the
discussions and reflected in the communique on Antarctica and
we'Ire very pleased that that has happened. Also a reference to
and confirmation of the importance of my Asian Pacific Economic
Conference initiative. That has been welcomed and we're pleased
about that.
We also have the confirmation of what we've done in the South
Pacific out of the Forum, most particularly in regard to the
worldwide ban we're seeking on driftnet fishing. We had the
endorsement of the Australian initiative in regard to the
Government and Industry Chemical Weapons Conference and in regard
to our approaches to disarmament generally. So if you look at
those whole range of issues, they are ones where the Australian
position has been welcomed and endorsed and in which the
Commonwealth has embraced the plans of action and approaches
which will enable the Commonwealth to be of assistance in all
those matters.
In addition to all that, within the framework of the conference,
I've also had the opportunity of significant bilateral meetings
and they have been good, without being exhaustive about them, the
long meeting with Benazir Bhutto, the very long meeting yesterday
morning with my friend Rabbie Namaliu, the Prime Minister of
Papua New Guinea, as of course I had with others. We also were
able to use the meeting here to have discussions between myself
and Prime Minister Mulroney and that was followed up by meetings
with the officials where we have resolved now that the impasse
that had developed on the issue of canned fruit exports from
Australia into Canada in the context of the Canada United States.
JOURNALIST: JHOoURwN LwIiSTl: l that now affect the industry Mr Hawke?
PM: It will mean that we're now going to be put into a more
competitive position in the context of the Uruguay round
negotiations. There will be a phasing down of the tariffs on
Australian canned fruit going into Canada and this will be
welcomed by the industry to put them into a more competitive
position. JOURNALIST: Margaret Thatcher has just said that and I'm
quoting directly I am in step with the South African people and
in practical terms the Commonwealth is in step with me. How does
that sit with you?
PM: Well, really, it is amusing because what you've got is a
situation that every other Commonwealth country here, every other
Commonwealth country, has identified itself with the Commonwealth
proposals on South Africa. It is one country alone which has
expressed its reservations on that issue and that's Britain. Now
if out of that you want some twisted logic which is saying the
one person is in tune and all the rest are out of step, well then
that's alright if Mrs Thatcher wants to say that but you know and
every media commentator that is here knows what the facts are and
the facts are not as Mrs Thatcher put them.. Now that's
unfortunate but I say all those things without any rancour. I
mean it's Mrs Thatcher who is getting very, very upset and using
extravagant language now in the terms of the dilemma in which
she's found herself. Now I'm sorry that she feels it necessary
to use that rancourous language but you often find that when
people have created a problem for themselves they tend to use
extremes of language.
JOURNALIST: Where does it leave relations between Australia and
Britain? Is Mrs Thatcher the sort of person who could be trusted
to do business with?
PM: As far as I'm concerned, on every other issue than this, we
have had productive relations. Her visit to Australia was
welcome and productive. My return visit there earlier this year
was similarly constructive, relevant, productive and I have no
intention of allowing that relationship to be in any way
adversely affected by our obvious difference on this issue and I
trust that that will be the view and the position of
Mrs Thatcher.
ENDS