PACIFIC AFFAIRS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1943, Page 4

PACIFIC AFFAIRS

NEW ZEALAND DELEGATION HEADED BY PREMIER. EXPECTED IN AUSTRALIA NEXT MONTH. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 20. Early talks between Australia and New Zealand on the future of Pacific affairs are being predicted by political observers here. The “Sydney Morning Herald's Canberra correspondent says that while no public announcement has yet been made, there are grounds for expecting the arrival in Australia next month of a New Zealand delegation headed by the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser. , 1 Agreement between Australia and New Zealand on the lines of the future policy in the Pacific of the British Commonwealth of Nations, is seen here as an indispensable preliminary to any Imperial conference at which consideration might be given to that policy. The expected talks between the Australian and New Zealand Governments 'should endure the presentation of a joint viewpoint to any Imperial conference that is held during the next year. , Australia is expected to press strongly for such a meeting of the Empire Prime Ministers. Though an Imperial conference has been widely expected, it is reported here as definite that no decision on the subject has yet been achieved. The projected meeting of Commonwealth and New Zealand representatives is viewed as the first tangible outcome of the broadened international outlook which was so wholeheartedly approved by last week’s triennial conference of the Australian Laboui Party. Generally hailed aS another major political triumph for Mr Curtin, the result of last week s conference are regarded by the ’Sydney Morning I Herald" as having much deeper significance. . In the course of an editorial the newspaper says Mr Curtin’s victory was due not to spell-binding tactics but to the conference’s simple realisation that the old isolationism was dead and that Australia henceforth must work in the closest peace rime partnership with other nations.