Tie in with SE Asia,
p. 41 · Read in the full issue
Islands told
A call for closer co-operation between South Pacific Forum member countries and members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was made by Senator John Knight in a recent ad dress to the North Queensland Branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
Senator Knight, who before his election last December had a decade of service with the Australian Depart ment of Foreign Affairs including three years in Suva, stressed that in many areas the two groups of coun tries were seeking similar ends.
He said: “There is scope for closer co-operation between the two or ganisations. At an official level, the Forum, of which we are a member, might consult more closely with ASEAN as they develop their programmes; as they seek to do something about the prices of tropical agricultural products; as they seek markets for their products; as they try to develop more effective shipping arrangements and manageable freight rates; as they attempt perhaps to set up their own shipping lines; to com bine in establishing air services; to provide more effective regional com munications; to establish relevant in dustries; to provide better employ ment opportunities and public health services”.
Australia had “a great interest and inescapable involvement both in the South Pacific Forum and ASEAN areas,” said Senator Knight.
“All of us could benefit if the ef forts of these two regional organisations could be extended to consult together to see where common problems might be jointly dealt with or particular expertise and technology shared.
“It is an area where regional co operation could be effectively but in formally extended in what are two adjacent regional areas of great im portance to Australia.”
Discussing the Asian-Pacific regional context of Australia’s relationships, Senator Knight said the South Pacific Forum area represented “the first and most important element
most important because our in volvement is most direct and substan tial”.
He went on: “Australia’s involve ment in business, investment, bank ing, trade, communications and other matters is substantial. It is an area to which we must continue to give closer attention. There has, in the past, been a tendency to neglect the area for a number of reasons. It is not a major industrial or resource supplier. It has not been a centre of conflict. It does not possess large numbers of people.
But it is an area in which Australia has close friends with whom we share much in common, and in which we have certain obligations, because of our own substantial involvement.”
Senator Knight said that Australia’s participation in the South Pacific Forum, initiated in 1971, “is of importance to us and our neighbours in the area”.
“We have a lot to gain, more perhaps than other members of the region. I refer particularly to coun tries other than New Zealand and Papua New Guinea because, with those two, we do have special and long-standing relationships.
“But we must build closer and stronger ties with the governments of Fiji, Tonga, Nauru and the emerging nations the Gilbert Islands, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands.
These are all countries who are close to us and with whom we can readily build strong and lasting ties.
“It is worth noting that the govern ment has this month participated in the first of what are to be regular high-level official talks with the Government of Fiji. This is a further important step in acknowledging the significance to Australia of the Island nations of the South Pacific.
“It is also worth noting that while our attention has been so firmly focused on the Indian Ocean recently, there have been reports of the Soviet Union providing aid to Tonga and perhaps obtaining some facilities there or elsewhere in the region. This only serves to emphasise that we ought never take the South Pacific for granted.”