GOVERNMENT NOT COMMITTED’

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31753, 9 August 1968, Page 1

GOVERNMENT NOT COMMITTED’

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 8. The report of an ad hoc committee of the Royal Society of New Zealand on the Omega navigation system reached the conclusion that the system would not be regarded as reliable or useful for the exclusive use of one side in war time, the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said today.

Mr Holyoake, who was making a special statement to Parliament on the society’s report, which was tabled today, said the report should help allay public concern, which, he must say in all honesty, was needlessly arodsed by inaccurate, supposedly scientific assertions, and by over-hasty and over-imaginative political speculation. “I repeat that the Government is not committed to the establishment of an Omega station in New Zealand and will take all relevant factors into account

“But these factors do not. in my judgment, include any risk of New Zealand's becoming a nuclear target” he said “I believed that an impartial examination of the question by a body such as the Royal Society would provide an authoritative statement and help dispose of some of the rather fanciful assertions that had been made,” be said. The Prime Minister said that the report would help members of the public to form a judgment on this question. ■ Mr Holyoake said: “It considers the accuracy of the system and its assessment confirms that, while the system should be of immense value tv general shipping and air transport, it will not have the accuracy that has had to be ascribed to it by those argu-

ing it will be part of a ballistic missile launching system.”

Members would note that as well as other official documents freely made available to the Royal Society, the report published the text of a letter addressed to the Prime Minister by the United States Ambassador on July 9. “I had asked the Ambassador to bring together in one document in a form that could be used for the information of members, several of the points in which interest had been expressed during the discussions on this project,” he said.