13 November 1979
CONFIDENTIAL
Closer Co-operation with New Zealand: Meeting of 12 November
At yesterday’s meeting it was agreed to set up three study groups to examine the issues raised in paragraph 8 of the Statement of Understanding reached between Permanent Heads. The first study group, which will be chaired by Treasury, will focus on para. 8(v). The other two study groups will cover the remainder of the points made in para. 8. One of those groups will be chaired by Industry & Commerce and the other by STR. The three study groups will report to a steering committee chaired by Scully and with representation from other departments at Deputy Secretary level.
- Moore (Treasury) asked if Foreign Affairs could provide some part-time assistance for the working group to be chaired by Treasury. The actual Chairman will be Waterman (FAS). I said I thought that Doran would probably be our nominee and that I would ask him to get in touch with Waterman direct.
- The first task of the three study groups is to draw up terms of reference which will then be circulated to representatives of all Departments who attended yesterday’s meeting. In addition, I agreed that Foreign Affairs would set up a working group to study the question of the ANZAC Pact. 1 Here again, it will first be a question of establishing terms of reference. We may need to enlist other departments as well. In the course of yesterday’s meeting I outlined the reservations that we have about revision of the ANZAC Pact (paras. 4-6 of your Brief) and said that, although we would be perfectly happy to run the study as proposed, we were concerned that if effort was afforded towards revising the ANZAC Pact, attention could be diverted from the real object of the present exercise. Scully and Currie, in commenting on the foregoing, seemed to see mention of the ANZAC Pact as being something which might be supportive of the Prime Ministers’ meeting in March rather than as an alternative to closer economic association.
[matter omitted]
[NAA: A1838, 370/1/19/18, x]
- 1 Permanent Heads had agreed to Scully’s suggestion that both countries consider the possibility of revising the Treaty.