UN General Assembly
1970

134. My delegation reports each year to this Assembly about the progress made and the difficulties encountered during the preceding twelve months. The proclaimed policy is to ensure the exercise by the people of the Territory of their inalienable right to self determination. We are now doing, and will continue to do, all we can to prepare the people of the Territory for the termination of dependent status and their accession to full self-government and independence. 135. Next year another United Nations Visiting Mission, the seventh, will go to the Territory and will be able to see for itself the striking progress that has been made since the visit of the last Mission in 1968. 136. Earlier this year I had the honor to lead the Australian delegation to the meeting of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, which recommended that the Territory of Papua and New Guinea be admitted as one of its associate members, a recommendation which has since been unanimously approved by the Economic and Social Council at its forty-ninth session [resolution 1523 (XLIX)].