By Chris Ray*

In December 1972, the newly elected Australian Labor government led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam put an end to Australia’s decade-long involvement in the American war in Vietnam. The Whitlam government brought the last Australian troops home and established diplomatic relations with the then Democratic Republic of Vietnam in early 1973.

Whitlam recognised that Australia had a moral obligation to help Vietnam rebuild. His government began a modest program of aid including a cattle farm and milk processing plant. The aid continued after Labor lost office in 1975 but was effectively cancelled in January 1979 when the Liberal government under Malcolm Fraser joined a US-led campaign to impose an economic embargo on Vietnam.

The Australia Vietnam Society (AVS) responded with actions aimed at building a broad-based campaign to re-establish normal relations between the two countries. AVS held solidarity conferences and hosted speaking tours by Vietnamese delegations to raise public awareness in Australia.

Our 1980 Indochina Solidarity Conference in Sydney, for example, was financially supported by a dozen trade unions. Keynote speaker was Vietnamese MP Dr Tran Thi An, a specialist on the effects of US chemical warfare including the herbicide Agent Orange.

Public meetings in support of Vietnam came under physical attack from gangs of émigré Vietnamese. Among the worst incidents was a mob assault on a meeting addressed by visiting Vietnamese union officials in Brisbane in 1979.  During a 1985 Sydney conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the end of the war, participants were stabbed and bashed with bricks.

Australian workers defending a visiting Vietnamese delegation under attack in Brisbane in 1979

In Canberra, émigré Vietnamese assaulted ambassador Hoang Bao Son and embassy staffer Nguyen Trung Thanh on the steps of Parliament House. Shots were fired through the windows of the Vietnamese embassy and Vietnamese university students in Canberra were assaulted. Australian police support was often inadequate and AVS worked with the union movement to arrange security, accommodation and transport for Vietnamese diplomats and visitors.

During the 1980s, two Vietnamese ships the Arka 2 and the Tan Binh became stranded in Newcastle and Sydney harbours. AVS joined waterfront unions in organising support for the crews who were unable to return home for several months.

Meanwhile, AVS launched its own aid programs including raising funds to purchase an ambulance (shipped to Vietnam from Hong Kong) and support a child nutrition project at a Ho Chi Minh City hospital. Our 1984 Milk for Vietnam Appeal was endorsed by non-government aid agencies including Freedom from Hunger Campaign and resulted in the purchase of 13 tonnes of powdered milk for nursing mothers and infants. It was shipped from Newcastle in containers loaded by volunteer wharfies.

Workers in Newcastle loading three containers of milk powder for Vietnam in 1985

Our biggest aid project was an appeal to equip the Xuyen Moc Hospital near the former Australian army base at Nui Dat. Seen as a chance for Australians to build a new relationship with the people of former Tuy Phuoc Province, the appeal raised an initial $30,000.

Wishing to extend the project to other hospitals in the province, AVS arranged for it to be taken over by Community Aid Abroad/Australian Freedom From Hunger Campaign. Renamed the Dong Nai Health Care Restoration Program it eventually gained Australian government financial support.

Delivering aid was important but the main goal was to raise awareness of the need to re-establish normal relations between the two countries.

AVS national chairperson Tom Uren with Vietnamese foreign minister Nguyen Co Thach in March 1984

The defeat of the Fraser government in 1983 raised hopes that new Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke would promptly implement Labor Party policy to resume aid to Vietnam.  However, Hawke bowed to US pressure and direct Australian government aid to Vietnam was not restored until 1991.

The Hawke government did take modest steps to promote trade between the two countries. In 1989, AVS hosted a visit by a delegation from the Vietnam Australia Friendship Society led by VAFS chairman Vu Tuan, who was also the Minister for Light Industry. During a three-week trip, Mr Tuan met federal government ministers and industry CEOs and encouraged joint venture investments.

Renowned Vietnamese pianist Dang Thai Son (3rd from right) with AVS members on Sydney harbour in 1986

In 1990, AVS organised two pioneering Australian visits to Vietnam, by a work brigade of English-language teachers and a tourist group. The following year we organised, and obtained federal government support for, a visit to Australia by two Vietnamese journalists, Pham Hien of the Vietnam News Agency and Nguyen Cong Khuyen, founding editor of Vietnam News, the nation’s first English language daily newspaper. VNS

* Chris Ray, who volunteered to work as an English-language editor for Vietnam News Agency in the 1970s, was AVS national secretary during 1979-1991