•
• Leader of the Opposition
AND MEMBER FOR WANNON, MR MALCOLM FRASER
SUNDAY OCTOBER 26, 1975
FOR PRESS THURSDAY OCTOBER 30, 1975
The Opposition has consistently maintained that there is more to answer on the overseas loans affair.
The Government's representative in the affair, the money broker, Mr Tirath Khemlani, says he was in touch with the Prime Minister's office until September this year, weeks after negotiations were supposed to have been broken off.
The Prime Minister told the Parliament and the people this week that he would answer no more questions about the part he played in the overseas loans affair.
Two Ministers have been despatched from office over this scandal.
Both of them had acted as Prime Minister during Mr Whitlam's absences from the country.
Both of them have gone because the Prime Minister said they did not tell the truth.
The forced resignation of the second'o:f these two Ministers, Mr Connor, was the final reprehensible event which drove the Opposition to reject this Government.
Regrettably for the health of this nation the overseas loans affair has not ended.
The Prime Minister told the House that négotiations were
broken off in May with the intermediaries which the Government was employing.
But Mr Connor was driven from office when it was disclosed in the Press that he continued to negotiate after this time to put Australia into hock for a generation.
The question that Mr Whitlam has not answered and has now refused to hear is a simple one.
To what extent was he aware that negotiations to raise billions of dollars from the Arabs continued after May 20.
Parliament House, Canberra, A.C.T 2600
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Mr Whitlam has consistently evaded this question. He has yet to give an answer.
He has yet to deny categorically that he was aware that his Government continued to negotiate with overseas intermediaries, after he had promised the nation that future loan negotiations would be conducted properly.
On Thursday in Parliament in a shameful display he said he would never answer this question.
When the Opposition consequently moved to bring on a censure debate the Government used its numbers to prevent the motion being moved.
Mr Whitlam would hardly need to twist and turn in this way if his conscience were clean.
Twice this week the Government refused to allow debate on the overseas loans affair.
Now the former Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Cairns, says the Prime Minister knew the story very fully about Connor, and that they were in close touch.
Dr Cairns also says that the charge by the Prime Minister that he and Mr Connor were disloyal and that they were not telling the truth was a lie.
In the whole of Sir Robert Menzies-time as Prime Minister there was not a single scandal. This Government has been racked by them.
At the centre of the sordid mess stands the Prime Minister, pretending purity and claiming that he was too trusting.
The Prime Minister's carefully worded replies in Parliament have not been those of someone who was trusting.
Over the weeks and months of this affair it has been notable how precisely Mr Whitlam has chosen his words.
He "accepted assurances" given him by members of his Government, or he has asked that questions be placed on notice, a parliamentary politeness for placed in limbo.
He makes cryptic distinctions between "communications of substance"
and negotiations.
Never has he said flatly that he was not aware that Mr Connor had dealings with Mr Khemlani after May 20.
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Four men signed the Executive Council document which on December 13 last year described a borrowing programme of four billion dollars as being for temporary purposes.
One of those men, the former Attorney General, Lionel Murphy, has been appointed to the High Court.
Two others, Dr Cairns and Mr Connor have beén put out of office.
Only the Prime Minister remains. He too has now been named by Dr Cairns as having told a lie.
Not only has Mr Whitlam refused to face questioning from the Opposition in the overseas loans affair but he also refused a request from the Press Gallery for a press conference and an invitation from a television station to engage in a
televised debate with me.
His attitude towards the Parliament and the press is consistent with his attitude towards the people.
He is frightened to front up. Is it any wonder?
Library Digitised Collections
Author/s:
Fraser, Malcolm Title:
Loans affair Date:
2 November 1975 Persistent Link:
http://hdl.handle.net/11343/40741 Terms and Conditions:
Copyright courtesy of Malcolm Fraser. Contact the University of Melbourne Archives for permission requests.
