VIII - New Guinea and Nauru

Summary

Australia’s interests in its external territories can conceivably have an influence on Australia’s international relations, depending on what amount of truth there is in the assertion that nowadays foreign policy and colonial policy are interconnected and interacting. These connections and reactions, however, are usually very difficult to trace and to document since they exist only in the highest national councils and behind closed doors. So far as New Guinea and Nauru in the period under review are concerned, the repercussions of Australian policy in these territories on Australian foreign policy do not seem to have been very significant. There are two main fields in which such repercussions might be felt: in Australia’s relations with the United Nations and in regard to specific international issues such as the West New Guinea question; these fields are covered more directly in other chapters in this book, and here attention is confined to an examination of those aspects of Australian “colonial” policy in New Guinea and Nauru which may have had a bearing on international relations.