Canberra, 11 August 1972
Confidential
Australia House
Mr Bowen opened the subject up with me at the end of a phone call I made to him on another matter.
He said it appeared he may have misunderstood the outcome of the talk with the Prime Minister in Sydney recently when I was present. He may have read too much into it.
He had no strong feelings himself except that he and the Government would want to appear rational presentationally. In fact, he was not too keen to take Australia House over at all except as a rational thing to do at this point of our history.
But he would not want to do it if too many people would be upset if it were to be not properly taken over. He said that he felt he could live with some delaying formula—something on the lines that it was proceeding but that it was a complex matter.
He added that not everything can be tackled at once and many things are deferred or put in the ‘too hard for the moment’ basket. This would be understood.
He said again that he was ‘not all that keen’.
I said that the Minister had no doubt heard from Sir Keith Waller and the difficulties we had run into over some of the details. Sir Keith had felt that these were obstacles. I would have been happy to go on discussing.
But I was fully conscious of the need for the Government to have a position by the time Parliament begins. With this in mind I had today sent the Prime Minister a draft of a letter that he might send to Mr Bowen. 1
It remained to be seen how the Prime Minister would treat the draft. Some of it reflected my own thoughts but a great deal of it was putting into a letter arrangements that the Prime Minister had already spoken to me about.
Mr Bowen said that perhaps we should think about the matter further.
I said that the Prime Minister may be in touch with him.
1 Document 395.
[NAA: A1209, 1971/9449 PART 2]