A U S T R A L IA N  S E N A T E

C A N B E R R A ,  A.C.T.

PRESS STATEMENT BY SENATOR F.P.McMANUS, ACTING LEADER   DEMOCRATIC LABOR PARTY..

Prime Minister McMahon is right in insisting that

Australian diplomacy be conducted with dignity and commonsense

rather than with hysteria and emotionalism.

The Australian Peking lobbyes claim that a ping pong team

is entitled to be received by the Prime Minister is impertinent

and laughable.

Anyone overseas wishing to contact our Government

should use a more acceptable avenue than a ping pong, mah Jong,

scrabble or yo-yo team. .

Frantic efforts to create an atmosphere for recognition of

Peking come from the same people who have just been demanding

that we cease to recognise France.

Yet Peking has regularly tested atomic weapons and opposes

a ban on atomic testing. .  .

17 July, 1972

Canberra

