Defence to be kept up, says Govt M.P.

Press, 4 October 1984, Page 8

Defence to be kept up, says Govt M.P.

PA Wellington The Labour Government would take whatever action necessary to defend the independence and territorial integrity of New Zealand, said the Labour member of Parliament for Napier, Mr G. B. Braybrooke, last even-

Mr Braybrooke told Parliament during the Ad-dress-in-Reply debate that the Government did not at the moment consider there was any obvious military threat to New Zealand security. "Nevertheless, Labour recognises the need to maintain an effective nucleus of defence forces which can be expanded should the situation change,” he said. The Armed Forces deserved another thorough and constructive review so that people prepared to make a career in them would know what the future held.

Labour believed in the need for an efficient Navy, “not the ageing rust buckets which we purchased because we got them on the cheap.” The frigates the National Government had bought were older than one of the ships which was scrapped, he said, and tied up the resources of the naval dockyard for two years at an enormous cost.

“Then in 10 years we are going to throw the wretched things away,” he said. Mr Braybrooke said that Labour would not have submarines. “Submarines are nothing more than expensive coffins. Submarines have no role to play in New Zealand’s Armed Forces whatsoever.

"Should we have purchased subs just think of the new navab dockyard we would have had to build to

house them and the purchase of all the motherships to service them at sea. The Navy deserves better than cheap, second hand, cast-off, submarines.”

The Army was grossly under-equipped, he said. "All it has as a result of the previous Govemnment is an enormous amount of chauffeur-driven vehicles, mainly for senior officers. “We need in my view fewer command headquarters, fewer senior officers sitting round wondering when their pension is coming up and their next promotion.

“We need a harder, leaner Army equipped to do the job which this Government expects it to.” The Opposition member of Parliament for Marlborough, Mr D. L. Kidd, referred to the dissolution of a committee inquiring into the July devaluation and said that the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, had speculated and conjectured about devaluation.

“That loose talk, that doctrinaire position, led inexorably to a state of affairs from which there was an inevitability, it appears, which led to a devaluation,” he said. Mr Kidd also attacked the Reserve Bank, saying it had precipitated the problem by “slack and inadequate” administration.

The bank had, through its procedures, “allowed the situation to develop, namely the acquisition of cover for foreign exchange for which people were not entitled to in the normal course of unrestricted and regulated business.

“Having precipitated this enormous landslide hanging over the currency because of their slack and inadequate independent adminis-

tration, they have to go to the incoming Government and say, You must devalue’.

“Perhaps the more guilty people are not the Ministers of Finance, of either persuasion, but those who have, in the exercise of their independent day-to-day transaction powers, piled up an avalanche which they saw coming down.”

The Minister of Education, Mr Marshall, said that the University Entrance examination would be sat for the last time next year. Mr Marshall was referring to a recent speech by the former Minister of Education, Mr Wellington, who had said that University Entrance would still be in place at the next election.

“It will not be still in place,” he said. “It will almost certainly be sat for the last time next year in 1985.”

Only one person had been out of step over the future of the examination — Mr Wellington.

Mrs Mary Batchelor (Lab., Avon) sounded a warning about the “positive discrimination” moves promoted by the Minister of Women’s Affairs, Mrs Hercus.

Mrs Batchelor said a tendency today was for women to demand the best of both worlds — working at careers and raising families. “But I don’t believe we can have that and still grow as individuals,” she said. “We must recognise that whatever choice we make there will be drawbacks.” She said there was a real danger that women’s demands for representation merely because they were women could end up in “a situation of tokenism.”