‘Australia Cannot Fill Place'

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31580, 18 January 1968, Page 9

‘Australia Cannot Fill Place '

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) CANBERRA, Dec. 7. Australia cannot fill the place that Britain is leaving in SouthEast Asia, the Australian Prime Minister, Senator John Gorton, told a press conference today. Senator Gorton, at his first nationally-televised press conference since being sworn in as Prime Minister a week ago, was commenting on Britain’s

announcement of its withdrawal timetable from Malaysia and Singapore. He said: "We can’t step in and fill the place that Britain has been filling. “We would want to assist as long as the countries there wanted us to. “But there is a limit to the amount a country like us could spend on defence because there are requirements for development.” Senator Gorton said the amount Australia was spending on defence was “quite large.” But “guns and human development” had to be brought into balance. ‘Senator Gorton twice returned to the question of balancing defence and developmental expenditure.

Asked how he saw Australia’s economic responsibilities in South-East Asia, he said: “This is the area in which we would like to see our major effort of economic assistance made. But in considering this there are two provisos.” He said the first was that Australia was already having to use some of its assistance to combat not major invasions, but insurgency, brushfire wars.

Secondly, Australia had to consider its own development. In reply to another question, he said: “I would hope that our expenditure on defence doesn’t cause us such commitments that it interferes with the development of Australia generally."