Realism called for on nuclear issue—P.M.

Press, 2 August 1983, Page 2

Realism called for on nuclear issue—P.M.

By

KARREN BEANLAND

Both the Government and the National Party had to have a sense of realism on the nuclear issue, the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, told the party’s Dominion conference in Dunedin yesterday.

In his final address to the, conference, Mr Muldoon said that no-one would have picked in advance that the conference would have devoted so much time to the issue of nuclear weapons.

Concern about nuclear weapons started in Europe with the proposal to deploy more nuclear weapons there. It had spread throughout the world and thousands of New Zealanders had said that nuclear weaponry was abhorrent.

“There is no New Zealand Government since the time when nuclear weapons first became a reality that has not been opposed and has acted accordingly,” he said. However, a sense of realism was needed because “the fact of the mmatter is that disarmament in the nuclear sense will never be a reality unless the two super-Powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, can finally agree.” “If they do not agree we know enough about the ambitions, the intentions and the deliberate policy of the Soviet Union to know that it would be suicidal for the United States to agree to unilateral disarmament in the nuclear sense.

“That is the reality and in the Government we have to face realities,” he said. The most important plank of New Zealand’s defence policy was the A.N.Z.U.S. treaty.

Mr Muldoon said that in his recent discussions with the Australian Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, he had been “somewhat surprised” but gratified that the Australian Labour Government wanted A.N.Z.U.S. to be strong. Mr Hawke had gone further than either the former Prime Minister, Mr Mai-

colm Fraser, or the New Zealand Government in openly saying he would permit vessels and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons to use Australian ports and airfields, provided they were only in transit. “What it means is that the Labour Government, in contra-distinction to the New Zealand Labour Party, has a realistic attitude to the defence of their country.” In summing up, Mr Muldoon said the conference had been a good one, although it was unusual for a number of reasons. “We are in Government but we have been behind in the polls. At least partywise, I have still managed to keep my head up in front most of the time,” he said. But the spirit of the delegates over the week-end had not been the spirit of a party that was behind in the polls. “I get a stronger feeling of confidence for next year than I have had on many occasions in the past at National Party conferences,” he said. At the end of his address, Mr Muldoon paid a tribute to the party president, Mrs Sue Wood. “In a low key way she does not miss a beat,” he said. “She is a credit to this party and we are very lucky to have her.”