Aust Minister clashes with Filipino official

Press, 27 April 1983, Page 22

Aust Minister clashes with Filipino official

NZPA Manila Unless Australia and New Zealand form closer ties with the Asian region they will become “global backwaters” the Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Bill Hayden, has warned. He said in Manila that Australia’s new Labour Government intended to accelerate its interest in the region. However on the same occasion, Australia’s trading relationship with the Philippines came under fire from the Filipino Foreign Minister, Brigadier General Carlos Romulo. “It is our view that the future of our country and our sister country New Zealand is very much going to be determined by developments and trends in this region,” Mr Hayden had said. The fastest economic growth rates in the world were taking place among the A.S.E.A.N. countries and in East Asia, he said. “The future of Australia and New Zealand has to be integrated increasingly with the things that happen in this part of the world. “To fail to do that would result in Australia and New Zealand becoming backwaters in the global context.”

However Brigadier General Romulo said that the Australian-Filipino trading

relationship had dramatically deteriorated. More could be done by Australia to redress the imbalance, he said. The trade issue arose in spite of Mr hayden’s insistence that his rushed fourday visit to four of the five A.S.E.A.N. nations would deal only with the question of Australia resuming aid to Vietnam.

Brigadier General Romulo said that his country did not “want to be continuously indebted to the industrial countries for developmental aid.” “In spite of official protestations of concern, trade between our two countries has deteriorated to the disadvantage of the Philippines.” He said that in 1980, trade with Australia totalled $312 million but the Philippines suffered a trade deficit ol $ll7 million. “since the economies oi our countries are based on a free market system, much has to be done by the Philippines-Australia Business Council to redress this disadvantagous relationship.” He said that Australia gained from investment in the Philippines and also gained an advantage from

the migration of skilled Filipino workers. Filipino communities in Australian cities were making, a large contribution to the skilled Australian workforce, but for the Philippines it was “a reverse transfer of technology,” Brigadier General Romulo said.

“As a developing country, the Philippines would rather attend to its own development, based on self-reliance, than be continuously -indebted to the industrial countries for developmental aid.

“This could only be achieved by equitable terms in our trading relationship that will ensure mutuality and equality.” Mr Hayden said that Australia was keen to improve the relationshp and he as an economist “would be the first to acknowledge there is a very definite need in Australia for some substantial restructuring of our economy, especially in the area of manufacturing industry.” “But, as a political realist, I would be the first to acknowledge that at a time of deep and sustained economic recession it is very difficult to carry out those sorts of changes,” he said.