M43A

May 1995

INTERNATIONAL TREATIES

Alexander Downer has lost the plot again on the treaties issue.

The communique issued today by the Constitutional Centenary Foundation Conference on Australian Governance in a Global Society does argue for widespread consultation - even wider than the intense consultations that presently occur - by the Australian Government before ratifying new treaties.

But it stops completely short of suggesting that ratification should be able to be blocked either by the Parliament or by the States if the Executive Government of the day wishes to proceed. The key passages are these:

"It was acknowledged that the Executive Government must have the authority to negotiate treaties in its own right and the final authority to ratify the same."

"...in the event that agreement [with the States] cannot be reached, the Federal Government should not be prevented from proceeding to ratification."

In saying, as I did to the Conference, that treaties "should not be subject to the vagaries of Parliament", I was saying no more than that no Executive Government of the day should be hamstrung in its capacity to ratify treaties by Senate majorities - not least one in which the balance of power is held by a party which received just 53,000 primary votes at the last election.

I firmly stand by that view - and don't believe that Mr Downer, despite the rhetorical flurries in his statement today, thinks any differently.

CANBERRA