“Australia cannot stand aside from the struggle to resist the aggressive thrust of Communism in Asia and to ensure conditions in which stability can be achieved. Our own national security demands this course. We cannot be isolationist or neutralist, placed as we are geographically and occupying, as we do, with limited national strength, this vast continent. We cannot leave it solely to our allies – and their national servicemen [conscripts] – to defend in the region the rights of countries to their own independence and the peaceful pursuit of their national way of life.”

—  Harold Holt

statement on the creation of a self-contained Australian task force to fight in Vietnam, 8 March 1966
As prime minister
Source: The Life and Death of Harold Holt, p. 178.

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Harold Holt 7
Australian politician, 17th Prime Minister of Australia 1908–1967

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