Canberra, 8 July 1971
866. Confidential
After reading Prime Minister’s message, 1 and summary of White Paper, Mr McMahon said that he did not wish to offer any substantive comment at this stage. However, the agreement which we had now reached with the Six would confront Australian Government with problems which were all the more difficult for arising at a time when Australian agriculture (especially the wool industry) was in such a depressed state.
2. I said that my staff and I had been endeavouring to inform ourselves about likely impact of our entry on Australian primary industries. From contacts that we had made with primary producers’ associations it was clear that there were widely varying opinions about extent and nature of damage which might be done. In the circumstances it seemed to me that the general assurance which we had secured from the Six, guaranteeing action if third-country trade with us in agricultural products were disrupted, had the considerable advantage of being extremely flexible. Mr McMahon commented that to tum a general assurance into specific protection would require ‘another negotiation’. [The Australian Government] had never given their explicit assent to our entering the EEC. He did not propose to labour this point, but hoped that we would avoid any statement to effect that Australia had done so. I said that whether or not we entered the Community was a matter for the British Government and Parliament, but naturally if and when we did so we hoped it would be with Australia’s belessing [sic]. I added that from my own contacts in the last two months it seemed to me that very large number of Australians recognised the rightness of British entry.
1 Document 292.
[UKNA: FCO 30/898]