Comment from the Capital

Press, 11 April 1977, Page 10

Comment from the Capital

plexity of modern arms, equipment and logistics generally, and at the disparity of equipment available to one or other of the defence systems, I doubt that we could do better than operate independently beside Australian units, and they beside ours.

As independent powers, Australia and New Zealand must maintain independent forces. But a degree of amalgamation could produce a degree of common preparedness. Eor instance, both Australia and New Zealand are proposing to declare a 200-mile coastal strip as an area of economic influence. While normal defence forces must remain separate, there is no reason why there cannot be an Anzac version of the United States Coast Guard, using ships built expressly for that purpose supported by long-range and medium range maritime reconnaissance aircraft. In this way both Australia and New Zealand, through having adequate forces to concentrate quickly in a threatened area, might be saved the consequences of the folly of claiming much more sea mileage than we can adequately patrol separately. Reasons for the separateness of Australia and New Zealand which were valid only five years ago are not valid now. We do have differences, but it is a fair comment that these have been over-emphasised by comparison with our similarities. The complexity of the world in which New Zealand and Australia co-exist goes much deeper than the occasional sighting of alien warships and fishing fleets off our coasts. In spite of the aims of N.A.F.T.A., there is room for thinking that it is

leading to a sharpening of competition between Australian and New Zealand trade and import-export groups. To such Australian groups, New Zealand is “the enemy”. Every increase of this feeling diminishes the trans-Tasman feeling of “togetherness”. Ideally Australia and New Zealand should be free to proceed their independent ways. But in the modern world of the E.E.C., the N.A.T.O. alliance, international corporations and monopolies such as 0.P.E.C., free and independent small nations have an uncertain future. Economic pressures compel alliances even when physical pressures do not. An early example of this trend occurred in 1949 when Newfoundland, which for many years had stood aloof from the Canadian confederacy, was forced by economic pressure to become a province of Canada. In doing so it made far more sacrifices than New Zealand would have to do in joining Australia. In the Commonwealth of Australia, state governments retain control of their own affairs, except those expressly delegated to the Commonwealth Government. Furthermore, each Australian state is a sovereign power within the Australian Commonwealth, a fact often bitterly lamented by the previous Australian Commonwealth Prime Minister (Mr G. Whitlam). Few New Zealanders would require briefing on the losses New Zealand would incur in joining Australia. But there is an increasing feeling that, as with Britain and the Common Market, the costs of remaining aloof might well outweigh the costs of joining. An Australasian con-

federacy would start off with some 16,500,000 people to whom could be added the 3,000,000 of Papua New Guinea and the populations of Fiji, the Cook Islands, Niue, Western Samoa, Tonga and the others if they so desired. In many respects the tendency we have seen after the Second World War for very small communities to seek independence has meant the exposure of weakness to an increasingly rapacious world. This applies with increasing force to the micronations of the South Pacific. New Zealand and Australia have shown a continuing interest in the South Pacific Forum. And there is already a beginning there of something which could develop its commercial, and even its defence, potential. But this must take time. Of far greater urgency, however, is New Zealand's problem. Australian Ministers will not go on record as to whether or not they desire New Zealand’s presence in their commonwealth. I suspect that, some of the trade and farming lobbies in Canberra would not be happy at the arrival of a new state, more populous than any of the Australian members except New South Wales and Victoria, and more agriculturally productive than any of them. Are we really wanted? After some talks with the visiting Australian contingent, I believe we are. New Zealand’s presence would give a little more strength to an Australian Commonwealth which already has many 7 things which we do not. After all, New Zealand is four times the size of that other “island state” Tasmania, and seven times as populous.