Call for moral lead on N-arms issue

Press, 3 May 1984, Page 14

Call for moral lead on N-arms issue

New Zealand should exert moral leadership in the vital quest for disarmament and arms control, says the member of Parliament for Selwyn, Miss Ruth Richardson.

“We must demonstrate to the nuclear States as effectively as we can our total abhorrence of the nuclear capability,” she said in Christchurch this week. New Zealand, as a small and morally influential country, had persistently made its objections to nuclear arms known. It had signed the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty and had agreed at the South Pacific Forum in 1976 to examine the idea of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Pacific.

Although progress on disarmament had been “absymal,” Miss Richardson

said that it was superfluous for local authorities in New Zealand to declare themselves nuclear weapons-free zones. New Zealand had already committed itself to being a nuclear weaponsfree country in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. What New Zealand could do towards world peace was to persuade the nuclear States to disarm by exerting moral leadership, she said.

The argument that the West should begin the process by a one-sided disarmament was seductive, but it was ridiculous and naive. There was no evidence to show that the Soviet Union would disarm if the West did first.

“What we must reject is the mindless escalation of nuclear weapons for the sake of each keeping pace

with the other. We must seek first a halt, then a systematic reduction and ultimately elimination of the nuclear component,” she said. Miss Richardson said she supported the idea of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Pacific and she hoped more progress would be made with it. There would be an extensive and interesting debate on the issue in Parliament this year when the select committee which was studying the idea reported back. Such a zone would show New Zealand’s disapproval of nuclear weapons in the clearest way. However, it would not mean that New Zealand would have to turn its back on the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance and it would have to allow for the passage of vessels.