Canberra, 3 April 1973
I thank you for your kind words of welcome. It is an honour to be asked to address you today and I thank you for your invitation.
What I have done since becoming Minister for Defence is to take a number of steps to ensure that decisions about the composition and size and structure of our armed forces and the weaponry and equipment with which they are supplied are made in a co-ordinated manner, without any waste, and with a clear idea of the role that Australia is going to play in our region in the future.
Consequently, a number of major investigations are now under way in the Defence Group of Departments which will result in tremendous improvements in our defence capability.
First, there is a joint study with the Department of Foreign Affairs aimed at reassessing our strategic situation over the next fifteen years. As our foreign policy has changed to take into account changes in the international scene like the ending of the Viet-Nam war, the detente between the United States and China, Britain joining the Common Market and the trend towards a zone of neutrality in South East Asia. I believed the stage had been reached when our long-term defence interests could be realistically reassessed.
Secondly, a joint study of the future size and shape of the Australian Regular Army is under way by senior officers of the Defence and Army Departments.
Thirdly, a Committee of Enquiry into the Citizen Military Forces is being set up to enquire into the future role of the CMF. I recognize that there are serious problems of morale in the CMF, and although there has been some improvement now that it is not weighed down by young men trying to avoid the conscription ballot, the problem will not go away until the CMF is given a definite role in our national security system.
Fourthly, there is an enquiry into where our forces should be deployed around the country, that is, into the disposition of bases. Considerations of what is militarily necessary, of the need for mutual support between the three Services, of access to the amenities of family life, of effects on the environment and the development of new urban centres are all being taken into account in this study.
Finally, there are a number of investigations being undertaken into re-equipping the armed forces with the planes (in particular a replacement for the Mirage), ships (I refer to the light destroyer project) and tanks most suited to their tasks. On these matters I have emphasised that the Government wants to see more Australian defence spending used in Australia for the benefit of Australian industry and the development of our defence industrial capabilities.
Our main achievement so far, I believe, has been the development of an all-volunteer force—a professional force which can consistently maintain a high standard of preparedness and with the capacities and skills to use the highly sophisticated defence systems that modern technology can produce.
The abolition of conscription was only a part of this.2 Other important steps have been the implementation of the recommendations of the Woodward Committee on pay and conditions, the decision to appoint an ombudsman for the defence forces who will deal with the individual grievances of servicemen and women, the forthcoming legislation on the Defence Forces Retirement Benefits Scheme and a whole host of changes improving the conditions of service, the career opportunities, the repatriation benefits and the accommodation of members of the armed forces.
We have recognized that the military career is a profession in its own right—the profession of arms. We have acted swiftly to recognize the dignity of serving members.
A Serviceman is a citizen as well as a member of the Forces, and whilst he must undertake certain commitments and obligations not ordinarily accepted by others in the community, his standing as a citizen must not be entirely subordinated to his membership of the forces.
Our recognition of this has resulted in a very gratifying improvement in Army recruiting and retention rates, so that present indications are that the target of 31,000 Army volunteers by June this year will be achieved.
So we have made encouraging progress to date in our commitment to build up our own national security. A strong defence must be maintained not only so that we can ensure our own territorial security and contribute to stability in our region, but also so that we can, in the words of my Party’s Platform, and I quote, ‘be capable of deployment for maintaining and supervising peace as part of a United Nations force for carrying out international peace-keeping agreements’.
The current strategic situation, in which there are no apparent direct threats to Australia for the next ten years, gives us the opportunity to look critically at the means we may adopt to reduce the likelihood of conflict in the future and to contribute to the maintenance of peace.
We are entering, I believe, a period of history in which we have new opportunities for creating bonds of co-operation and trust between nations.
Old fears have receded, and the tensions that arose from the unstable division of the world into two great blocs have almost vanished.
The dominant position of the two super powers within their own blocs has weakened, and new great powers or potentially great powers are emerging into the international arena.
Consequently the small and medium-sized countries are finding it possible to develop new common interests with countries that were previously out of bounds, and in this situation of multi-polarity rather than bi-polarity there is the opportunity for greater stability, as countries form and reform into different groupings on different issues, rather than lapsing into the old Cold War postures of blind confrontation between two great armed camps.
In this era we have the chance of reasserting domestic claims over the claims of the military for shares in our national budgets.
It is a tragedy that so much of the hard-won wealth of the developing countries should be spent on military budgets when their people cry out for food and shelter and jobs. It is sheer folly for the already developed nations to continue to channel high proportions of their gross national product into armaments when there are great problems of transport, housing, hospitals, schools and relative poverty in their cities.
In 1969, the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency reported that since 1964 the dividends of economic growth in the world community had been ‘dissipated in higher military expenditures rather than contributing to the improvement of living standards’.
The United States has recently made a decision not to cut back on military spending so as to be able to bargain from strength in their negotiations with the Warsaw Pact countries on the mutual reductions of forces in Europe.
That is not a question on which I have any wish to comment, but it is an example of the sort of situation that all countries find themselves in to some degree.
The perennial questions which all countries have to answer in their own way are:–
- What forces and weapons are relevant to maintaining an equilibrium?
- What forces and weapons might instead encourage a new competitive round of increases?
- What forces and weapons serve primarily to increase merely the prestige of the Services and the profits of the defence contractors?
Progress in limiting the arms race can come only as we take positive steps towards creating (he conditions that lead to the peaceful rather than the violent resolution of controversy.
These conditions, l believe, can be narrowed down to two basic ones: the creation of a strong world public opinion against war, and the generation of trust between nations through the development of the bonds of personal contact, aid and trade between them.
A country that anticipates a strong reaction from world public opinion if it engages in violence will be deterred from violent acts, and that deterrence will be stronger the greater the amount of interdependence that exists between countries, because a strong reaction could jeopardize future co–operation between them.
In this connection, the United Nations is a unique forum for mobilizing world public opinion. In the United Nations the smaller and medium-sized states as well as the greater powers can take a simultaneous stand against an aggressor that they might not take in isolation.
The force of United Nations resolutions must not be under-estimated. Nor must the effects of the good offices that the United Nations provides in creating a meeting ground, conducting enquiries, and engaging in mediation.
Not only through the United Nations, but in all the ways that we can devise, the great task of building up bonds of inter-dependence between countries must be advanced in this breathing space that we now enjoy.
I see as important the development of personal friendships across national lines, the growth of specialized aid and trade bodies that accentuate expert factors rather than political factors, and the exchange of information on a much wider basis than now exists.
Even joint exercises of the sort that New Zealand and Australia are now holding with so much success have a role to play, so long as they are extended to as many countries as possible. It is with this need in mind that Australia is proposing to Indonesia the possibility of holding joint exercises between us in the near future.
Peace, freedom and neutrality will follow from inter-dependence. The more international bonds that can be created the better, for international bonds lead to a sense of responsibility and responsiveness towards the needs of other countries.
It is for this reason that being with you today has given me so much pleasure, for the First Tuesday Group provides one such occasion when the bonds between us all can be developed and strengthened.
1 The First Tuesday Group was a luncheon group of political counsellors from embassies and high commissions in Canberra.
2 The Whitlam Government ended conscription at the end of December 1972.
[NAA: A5931, CL311]