Canberra, 20 September 1966
Relations with Papua and New Guinea2
The recommended attitude for Cabinet in relation to the Territory of Papua and New Guinea seems to Mr. Griffith and myself to be rather heavy handed.
2. Of course Australia has the whip hand, but does it need to be so rudely waved as this? (Decisions of the kind now being sought invariably become public.)
3. We do not quarrel with the substance of the recommendation. But formalising the position in this way, and with this wording, would be unfortunate.
4. Surely the main object is to avoid a confrontation on issues where the Australian Government cannot but be made to look foolish. Tact and some reasonably straight talking behind the scenes is surely what is required, at least at this stage. Is this not something which could be better handled by the Administrator and his officers than by the Commonwealth’s Minister for Territories?3
[NAA: A4940, CI724 part 2]
1 P.J. Lawler, Acting Secretary, PMD.
2 See Document 69.
3 Hay later recorded that in discussions with Warwick Smith and Swift he ‘got the impression … that there was a kind of almost punitive attitude to the House of Assembly and the European members thereof, who had been difficult’ (Hay interview, 1973-4, NLA: TRC 121/65, 2:2/38).