Canberra, 17 December 1970
You will see the notes I have made to the first draft. 1
Please discuss with me when you have read them.
The changes to paragraphs 642 and 693 (pages 31 and 32) are of crucial political importance.
I do not want the impression to be created that I am trying to ram the Department’s views down Cabinet’s neck.
A persuasive approach is, I think, better.
There is no desperate urgency and I do not think a Submission could be dealt with by Cabinet before February.
Remember please that we have a D.L.P.—and that its reaction must be considered
Could you also please have better typing. It is a complex paper and becomes more difficult to understand if the type is bad.
P.S. Attached are cuttings which reflect the D.L.P. views.5
P.P.S. I have just received the United States paper.6 Does it lead to any changes in our own?
[NAA: A1838, 625/10/2, ii]
1 A reference to the first draft of Policy Planning Paper LP No. 2 (see Document 149) with written annotations by McMahon dated 17 December. The numbering of the paragraphs in the version annotated by McMahon differs slightly from the published version distributed by Holdich under cover of his minute dated 10 December.
2 An annotation by McMahon in the margins near paragraph 64 (paragraph 65 in Document 149) reads: ‘I do not agree with this presentation. It is too crude’. McMahon’s suggested redraft of the paragraph reads: ‘It would obviously be to our interest to have friendly and profitable relationships with the P.R.C. providing the P.R.C. manifested an ability and willingness to live up to the obligations of the Charter. It might not be practicable to wait until this manifestation occurs. What is certain is that we must protect our trade and other interests and reduce or remove the causes of hostility between China & ourselves if this can be done. In other words we should adopt those policies which are consistent with Australia’s best interests and which remove those constraints which are inimical to the achievement of our objectives. We must not be constrained by policies which are inimical to those objectives’.
3 An annotation by McMahon in the margin next to paragraph 69 (paragraph 70 in Document 149) queries whether sub-paragraph (c) was ‘necessary or desirable’ and amends the first sentence after ‘Modalities’ to read: ‘Discuss with the United States that recognition of the P.R. C. appears to be inevitable and that sooner or later it will be in our national interest’.
4 The Democratic Labor Party was a strongly anti-communist party with representation in the Senate. Since 1955, the Democratic Labor Party had generally advised its supporters to allocate electoral preferences to Liberal-Country Party candidates above those of the Australian Labor Party.
5 The clippings include: an article of 10 December in The Age by Bruce Grant, in which Grant criticised DLP attitudes to foreign and defence policy; a 14 December rejoinder in the same newspaper by the DLP’s Senator F.B.C. McManus; further comment in The Age by Grant, on which McMahon drew attention to a sentence which referred to ‘the Democratic Labor Party’s influence on defence and foreign policy’; and an article (obviously appended later) of 19 December by Peter Samuel in The Bulletin , in which Samuel commented that the Government was ‘more dependent than ever on DLP support with that party having another Senator and the possibility that their preferences will be even more crucial in returning the Government in 1972’.
6 Two pages of this paper, handed to the Prime Minister’s Department on 17 December, and dated 11 December, may be found in A1209, 19611684, iv. The remainder of the paper has not been found.