Australia's PM Hawke
pp. 18-20 · Read in the full issue
After The 15Th South Pacific Forum
Australia's PM Hawke wraps it up in Suva
Australia has given notice that it will sup port a new round of multilateral trade negotiations “only if it seriously and effectively addresses” the special concerns of the Pacific region. Trends towards trade protectionism, a product of the recent international economic recession, had to be reversed, said prime minister Robert Hawke, in the principal speech of his recent state visit to Fiji.
That, he said, was a matter of the utmost importance.
He proposed, in effect, the formation of a regional bloc in dealing with the world’s chief trading nations; “As a new round of multilate ral trade negotiations might be started before much longer, we in the region should be con sidering how we might register most effectively in the minds of the major trading nations the interests which we share as countries of the region,” he
said.
“Too often in the past our concerns have been pushed aside.
“We need to press for a more open and equitable internatio nal trading system in which the major trading countries will allow us less restricted access to their markets, particularly in the
area of agricultural commod ities.
“In this area, particularly, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as the smaller countries, have problems in the E.E.C. with the effects of protection ism, and over-production (which has led to dumping of food products in the Pacific and
the Pacific’s traditional mar kets), and also, to some extent in the United States. The U.S., however, has recently been helpful to Fiji in sales of sugar, despite a world glut of the product.
"I know that Fiji has a particular interest here in the sugar trade,” Mr Hawke said, “and I am sure that for you, as for us, the collapse of the International Sugar Agreement negotiations some weeks ago has caused concern.”
Australia had a particular role to play in contributing to the economic growth of the region, Mr Hawke said. “As a partner in development we can help stimulate economic growth, en hance trade prospects and en courage social development within the region “To this end we have given the region the highest priority in our overseas development assistance program. We are committed to providing $3OO million in aid to the South Pacific in the five year period to 1987/88. Individual country programs are being developed according to priorities set by respective national govern ments and administered with the greatest possible flexibility.”
Australia believed its future lay within the Asia/Pacific re gion. Mr Hawke said. “It is very much in the interests of all of us within the region that we con solidate the conditions of effec tive regional cooperation. The task of identifying regional solu tions to regional problems is among our most important re sponsibilities,” he said.
Mr Hawke said he felt the Forum meeting in Tuvalu had done much to improve under-
As the prime minister of Australia, Robert Lee Hawke is the major figure on the South Pacific’s political scene. He thus again took a leading role in the South Pacific Forum meeting, just held in Tuvalu, with successful initiatives on development of a nuclear-free zone in the region and the careful progress towards independence for the people of New Caledonia. He supported proposals by Kiribati and New Zealand on improving the economic outlook for the small and vulnerable countries, and he counselled restraint when, as in the case of the Solomons’ fury and frustration with the United States over their fisheries problems, matters showed signs of getting out of hand.
But above all, he reaffirmed his government’s stringent opposition to French nuclear testing, and determined commitment to the nuclear non-pro liferation treaty in all its aspects.
In this he was speaking as much to his own country as to the nuclear powers, and the nations of the region, as indeed he was in his reiteration of the importance of fully supporting ANZUS ... which, he said, with an obvious eye toward New Zealand’s Mr Lange, included receiving visits from nuclear ships.
The lines he and his diplomats pursued on these questions were fairly predictable, but what was perhaps less expected was the way he brought it all together in a ringing speech given, just after the Forum, at the official bure of the prime minister of Fiji, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.
It was, in fact, a major foreign policy pronounce ment, touching trade, nuclear risks and hopes, ANZUS, aid, economic growth, and the defence, in the very broadest terms, of the nations of the region.
standing on a whole spectrum of issues ranging from security to social welfare, and had en abled the countries of the re gion to express concerted views on regional issues of mutual concern.
“I thought the expression of grave concern by all the South Pacific leaders at the persist ence by the French Govern ment in their program of nuc lear weapons testing in the Pacific despite the long standing protests of the govern ments and peoples of the re gion was a most visible demonstration of a shared,
deeply-felt, regional anxiety,”
he said.
“It is simply not accept able to us, the countries of the South Pacific, that the French should be using the South Pacific, our own pre cious environment, in their efforts to perfect weapons of mass destruction.
“Australia, for its part, has suspended shipments of ura nium to France as evidence of our continued concern over this testing.
“Extensive and important discussions also took place at the Forum on the concept of a South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone. There has been consider able progress.
“The decision to establish a working group to take further the draft set of principles on such a Zone, and to report to the Forum governments is a very useful step forward,” he said.
It would enable, he said, “further elaboration of the con cept on the basis of consensus” so that all interests could be encompassed.
It would also produce “a concrete and realistic proposal which can be presented con fidently to the international community at large.”
“It is my profound convic tion that we, the countries of the region, must do what we can, use what influence we have, to reduce the dreadful threat of nuclear war.
“We cannot leave it to the nuclear weapons states alone to determine all ac tion in these areas,” Mr Hawke said. “We have a responsibility before our
people to be heard on these fundamental issues.”
Australia had given full sup port to the Nuclear Non-Pro liferation Treaty which, he said, was the most important mul tilateral control agreement in existence.
Australia was doing all it could to strengthen the treaty while categorically rejecting any nuclear weapons option for it self.
Yet the treaty also affirmed the rights of nations to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and thus Australia had a double obligation, Mr Hawke said, to “work toward disarmament, and to share re levant resources with those committed to the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Our position as a major ura nium producer is very relevant in this regard.”
“It would be easy to take the soft option, selectively to adopt a passive attitude to those obligations of the Treaty which might be difficult to shoulder.
We will not do so.
“Only through consistent and determined efforts to maintain and strengthen the treaty in all its aspects are we likely to ensure that the spread of nuc lear weapons is prevented.”
ANZUS was at the core of regional peace and harmony, he said.
“In our shared regional pur suit of support for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,and the South Pacfic Nuclear-Free Zone, formal and informal security arrangements, particu larly the ANZUS alliance, must continue now, as in the past, to play an important role,” he said. Australia and Fiji, he said, shared the view that “it is vital in our efforts to enhance further the security and stability of the region, that we not lose sight of the factors which have worked to our collective advantage for nearly four decades.”
And there was a direct shot at New Zealand’s nuclear ships ban, a policy strongly favored by the left-wing of his own Australian Labor Party: “In this regard I can clearly state that Australia will continue to wel come ship visits by our allies. I am pleased that Fiji shares the same view.”
Although nuclear matters occupied a good deal of the Forum meeting’s time and anxieties, in fact the greatest concern of the small countries was economic, and Mr Hawke paid great attention to these questions in his speech.
“We are aware that some countries, including Fiji, are not happy with aspects of the operation of the SPARTECA Trade Agreement, especially in the rules of origin provisions and also with apparel,” he said.
“We have therefore established working groups aimed at resolving these difficulties, and will extend for a further year the ’seed’ quota for apparel. ”
He touched upon the imbalance of trade between Fiji and
Australia, caused in large part by Fiji’s imports of energy.
Australia shared the problem, he said, and at the same time, through tourism, contributed a great deal to Fiji’s invisibles account, . between Q anta f and Ar Pac,flc was ° ne tangible expression of how “operation could benefit both ““nines, he sa ‘ d “We are both part of a region which we wish to see continue as an area of peace, prosperity, and political stability. We have a partnership based on mutual respect and understanding, which can develop only to our mutual advantage, and that of our region.”