“Hate Australia” View Found

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31320, 16 March 1967, Page 1

“Hate Australia” View Found

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 15. A new outbreak of “hate Australia” based on bilateral trade imbalance between Australia and New Zealand has developed, the “Financial Times” reports.

It was one of two developments which upset the Free Trade Agreement from continuing along its quiet path. First, there was the eruption of real trouble in the New Zealand balance-of-pay-ments, which led to the “hate Australia” outbreak.

Second, there was the derision of New Zealand’s Tasman Pulp and Paper to enter the Australian market for liner board.

The article, in an extensive examination of relations between the two countries, also says Australians believe it is prudent and desirable to help New Zealand make better progress towards the enlargement of her economic possibilities. Last year Australia lent New Zealand 30 million dollars through a loan of 20 million dollars and a standby (since taken up) of 10 million dollars. Australians see New Zealand’s dependence on the British market—taking about 45 per cent of New Zealand's exports—as a dangerous feature of New Zealand’s trade

from which Australia herself once suffered. Australia now sends only some 17 per cent of her exports to Britain against 42 per cent in 1948-49.

Australians also see New Zealand’s heavy dependence on exports of wool, meats and dairy products—about 80 per cent of New Zealand’s total current exports—as equally dangerous, the article says.