DEFENCE POLICIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22538, 1 October 1936, Page 10

DEFENCE POLICIES

CO-OPEKATION NEEDED AUSTRALIA AND DOMINION SIMILARITY OF PROBLEMS j FEDERAL MINISTER'S OFFER [BY TELEGRAPH —SPECIAL REPORTER] WELLINGTON, Wednesday The necessity for co-operation:.- between Australia and New Zealand on the question of ! defence was emnhasised by the Australian Minister of Defence, Sir Archdale Parkhill, afc a Ministerial luncheon to-day given by the New Zealand Government in honour oc the Australian and British delegates, to the aviation and air-mail conference. The defence, policies of the two countries,said Sir Archdale, were identical. "It is in the problems connected with defence, perhaps, that the two countries are most bound up with each other," continued Sir Archdale. "Even apart from their common participation in Imperial defence their local defence problems are very similar. Therefore, it is to their mutual interest to cooperate. Anything that we have in Australia that will be of value to th<» people of New Zealand is theirs for thoi mere asking." Sir Archdale said he brought an invitation from the Australian Government for an officer of the New Zealand Defence Forces to visit Australia for a month as the guest of his Government. The officer selected would be given facilities for inspecting the munition works and the various arms of the defence services. The information he would obtain might be of.some value to the authorities in the Dominion.

Wing-Commander Hepburn, of the Royal Australian Air Force, would be returning to Australia via New Zealand toward the end of October, continued Sir Archdale, and he would be in the Dominion for something like 10 days. This officer had fiown from Australia to England find had inspected most of the larger aerodromes in England, the Continent and America, and was fully conversant with all the requirements for up-to-date facilities of this nature. The Commonwealth Government would be only too willing to arrange for the advice of Wing-Commander Hepburn to be made available to the New Zealand Government in any direction that might be desired.