Australia seeks more independent defence

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 10

Australia seeks more independent defence

NZPA-Reuter Sydney

The Australian Cabinet has approved a new defence strategy for/ the next decade, underlining a more independent posture with greater emphasis on regional security, government officials said yesterday. The blueprint also emphasised the need to maintain Australia’s close links with the United States and improve its security role in the South Pacific, they said.

The defence White Paper t to be presented in Parliament next month, had no defence spending

goals, but the officials said the Defence Minister, Kim Beazley, hoped that it would continue at about 3 per cent of gross domestic product Mr Beazley told Parliament last week that Australia would play a key role in developing a common defence strategy among the island nations of the South Pacific. The South Pacific would be given the same priority as South-East Asia, where Australia had developed close security links for the last several decades, he said. Australia is a member of the Five Power De-

fence Arrangement (F.P.D.A.) in the SouthEast Aslan region. The other F.P.D.A. partners are Britain, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore. The new blueprint drew heavily from a recent defence review, known as the Dibb Report, but rejected the concept of limiting Australia’s military interest to 1000 nautical miles around its coastline, the officials said. It reaffirmed the maintenance of defence relations with New Zealand despite the suspension of the A.N.Z.U.S. treaty over the ban on nuclear-ship visits, the sources said.