TNAG-1312-FCO40-1687-Future-of-Hong-Kong-views-and-involvement-of-Australia--Cana-1984 — Page 8

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CONFIDENTIAL

7. Mr Cooper noted the current discussion of proposals for a

single regional organisation (SRO) in the South Pacific. During a recent call on him about this, the Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister

had enquired about New Zealand's Ready Reaction Force perhaps thinking of trouble over Irian Jaya. Mr Norrish commented that, though not really small, Papua New Guinea would regard itself as covered by the Commonwealth study. The Commonwealth Secretariat had been advised that there was no perceptible threat to the South Pacific countries. New Zealand was anxious that the Caribbean

should not be used as an example for the South Pacific where the

South Pacific Forum was the obvious source of advice. The Falkland

Islands and Grenada incidents had made Pacific Islanders think about

their situation.

8. Mr Cooper said that he had been struck, when in Denmark, by the idealistic views of those who opposed the siting of cruise missiles. This had a parallel in New Zealand, where there was a heated debate on defence in the recently-formed New Zealand Party (NZP). Some NZP members saw no threat and advocated abolition of defence expenditure to lower taxes. Like the British Alliance parties, the NZP had had a burst of popularity on its initial formation, achieving an opinion poll rating of up to 18% before Christmas. It had now dropped to about 13%. The Government had its worries over the forthcoming election, and would have had difficulties over defence expenditure if Mr Hawke had not declared Australia's continuing faith in ANZUS. Now, the National Party could go into the election on the same defence basis as before: defence expenditure was a necessary part of government policy for maintaining peace.

The meeting ended at 12.15 hours.

9.

Distribution

PS

PS/Lady Young

PS/Mr Whitney

PS/PUS

Sir W Harding

Dr Wilson

HKD

ECD(E)

Planning Staff

CONFIDENTIAL

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Mr Crabbie, Defence Department

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Mr Nixon, NENAD

Mr Hendrie, MED

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Mr Gowan, Soviet Department

CALL BY MR WILLIAN (BILL) HAYDEN, AUSTRALIAN MINISTER FOR FOREIGN

AFFAIRS ON PRIME MINISTER AND MR LUCE

1.

(80)

Mr Hayden will be calling on the Prime Minister on Monday 14 May at 4.00 pm and on Mr Luce at 11.00 am, the same day. Time for discussion at both meetings will be limited and we have provisionally agreed with the Australians the following short list of topics to be covered between the two meetings.

i)

London Economic Summit

ERD

ii)

iii)

Iran/Iraq conflict and Gulf contingency planning

Security of Small States

MED

Planning Staff

iv)

v)

Arms control and disarmament matters (of particular interest to Mr Hayden who would like to cover this subject in some depth

ACDD and Defence

Department

Soviet

East/West relations, Afghanistan and So iet military build up in Pacific (Mr Hayden will be visiting Budapest, Moscow, Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent after the OECD meeting in Paris).

SAD and Soviet Dept

HKD

vi)

Hong Kong

vii)

SE Asian affairs (Vietnam, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Prime Minister's visit to Malaysia

SEAD

viii)

ix)

Bilateral relations, including constitutional links, UK Nuclear tests in Australia and bicentenary matters SPD

Anglo/Libyan relations and future of Vienna Convention NENAD

2. We are suggesting that the Prime Minister should cover items 1, 6 and 8 and perhaps touch on aspects of items 5 and 7 and that Mr Luce should concentrate on items 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9. I should be grateful if briefing responsibilities could be as indicated above. Briefs may be provided in draft in the form of Points to Make and Essential Facts and I should appreciate it if they could be sent to me by lunchtime on Wednesday 9 May.

CONFIDENTIAL

/3.

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