Labowr pledges N-free zone, A.N.Z.U.S. renegotiation

Press, 13 June 1984, Page 1

Labowr pledges N-free zone, A.N.Z.U.S. renegotiation

By

MICHAEL HANNAH

in Wellington

The Labour Party yesterday pledged to declare New Zealand and its 12-mile territorial waters a nuclear free zone by law, and to renegotiate the A.N.Z.U.S. Treaty. Labour would also work with Pacific countries to achieve a South Pacific nuclear weapons-free, zone in which the acquisition, storage, dumping, basing, or testing of nuclear weapons would be banned, said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lange, yesterday. Describing Labour’s poli-

cies as independent, Mr Lange gave his party’s international affairs policies, which would:

® Close the South African consulate and ban investment of Government funds in South Africa, in accord with a United Nations declaration.

® Ban the entry of South African sports teams while South Africa practised apartheid, but guarantee New Zealanders the right to travel outside New Zealand.

® Establish diplomatic posts in West Africa and East Africa, and reopen the High Commission in India. & Pledge foreign aid equal to 1 per cent of New

Zealand’s gross national product.

@ Restore the tax-deduc-tibility of donations to the aid organisation, Corso. ® Support the preservation of Antarctica, free from conflict, military activity, nuclear contamination, and other environmental damage, and apply stringent safeguards over minerals exploration in the Ross Dependency.

Mr Lange said that Labour recognised that nuclear disarmament would be a long, slow, step-by-step process. A Labour government would step up this work, however, particularly through arms control in the

Pacific, where efforts would be focused.

The party proposes to sponsor a regional conference under United Nations’ auspices to promote a nuclear weapons free zone in the South Pacific and would urge further acceptance of the nuclear test-ban treaty and the non-prolif-eration treaty.

A second approach would involve legislating to make New Zealand and its territorial waters nuclear free.

“This country must never become entangled in any nation’s nuclear arsenal,” Mr Lange said. Claiming “widespread domestic support” for the

party’s anti-nuclear stance, Mr Lange said it was not anti-American, anti-Russian, or anti-Chinese.

“It is anti-nuclear and it applies to all nuclear Powers,” he said.

New' Zealand was no longer under any obligation for traditional or historical reasons to recognise every enemy of its allies or friends, said Mr Lange. “Certainly, I do not think we can be asked to do that in respect of the installation, storage, or harbouring of nuclear weapons,” he said. “I think instead we should take advantage of the fact that, at present and in the

foreseeable future, we have no obvious enemies. Equally, there is no reason to generate enemies by involving this country in the nuclear arsenals of any Power.”

Mr Lange gave an assurance that New Zealand would be defended under a Labour government. But he questioned the claim that the principal defence treaty, the A.N.Z.U.S. pact, obliged New Zealand to receive the United States’ nuclearpowered, and almost certainly nuclear-armed, warships and submarines. “The A.N.Z.U.S. Treaty contains no such provision,” he said.

MrLangesaidthetreatyhad worked quite successfully before nuclear vessels began visits to New Zealand in 1976. The treaty would be renegotiated “very early” in the first year of a Labour government’s term, according to the party’s spokesman on foreign affairs, Sir Wallace Rowling. He said the United States or Australia would be free to withdraw from the pact, but he denied that committing New Zealand to an anti-nuclear stance would amount to withdrawing New Zealand from the A.N.Z.U.S. pact.

“If they want to walk away from it, they have the right so to do,” Sir Wallace said.

Mr Lange said that an “updated” agreement would be sought, accepting such basic requirements as New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance; the active promotion of a nuclear weapons free South Pacific; equal partnership; and a guarantee of the complete integrity of New Zealand’s sovereignty.

Sir Wallace said that the policy was not novel, and that it had been spelled out ad nauseam in recent years, so that Australia and the United States would be well aware of it. With other Pacific coun-

tries, New Zealand would press for a South Pacific nuclear free zone, within the first term of a Labour government, Mr Lange said. This would not go as far as Labour would like, but it would be “a big step in the long journey we must make if our planet is to avoid the horror and madness of nuclear self-destruction.”

Mr Lange considered that Labour’s policy would make New Zealand safer.

“The only really valuable alliances are those based on openness and where each partner is separately strong and collectively trusting,” he said.

The South Pacific nuclear

free zone would extend to the area of the Pacific involving the South Pacific Forum countries. Although nuclear weapon testing by France at Mururoa would not come within this region, Sir Wallace Rowling promised that a Labour government would take “equally dramatic action” against these tests as it had taken against atmospheric tests in the term of the third Labour Government. “Do not be left in any doubt that the government would confront France on this issue and engender international hostilities to testing such that it stops,” Sir Wallace said.