Parties clash in House over foreign policy

Press, 10 October 1984, Page 8

Parties clash in House over foreign policy

By

MICHAEL HANNAH

in Wellington The Government and the Opposition traded accusations last evening of neglect of responsibility and of tunnel vision over the Government’s policy banning nuclear warship visits. The first foreign affairs debate in six years, outside the annual Estimates debates, was the occasion for setting on the Parliamentary record arguments on the future of the A.N.Z.U.S. pact and the direction of the Government’s foreign policy, which have been well aired on other platforms.

No startling revelations of policy emerged from the opening of the debate by the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, and the Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Warren Cooper. The Opposition warned of the possible effects of withdrawing from the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance, throwing in several shots also on the closing of the South African consulate, the

reopening of the New Delhi post, and the renovations to New Zealand House in London.

The Government maintained its support of the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance, confirmed its opposition to nuclear weaponry, and defended its first efforts at promoting its policies bn overseas platforms. Mr Cooper accused the Government of “crass stupidity” and “total innocence” in its approach to foreign policy. The “crass stupidity” was reflected he said, in the closing of the South African consulate, as this had removed a means of communication with South Africa.

“It will hardly help those most oppressed by cutting off all dialogue,” said Mr Cooper. The Government had shown “naive” innocence in its belief that it could change the world by its own example, in declaring its opposition to nuclear vessel visits.

He accused Mr Lange of

failing to show the leadership New Zealand required on this issue, and of abrogating his responsibilities to Australia, Asia, the United States, and Britain.

New Zealand’s reputation as a trustworthy friend had diminished day by day, he said. The ramifications would include a lower standard of living, growth of protectionism, and exclusion from negotiating tables, said Mr Cooper. “We cannot isolate trade from foreign policy,” he said.

Both parties agreed that the biggest threat to the world’s security lay in a nuclear holocaust. They differed in their responses, however. Mr Cooper, warning that New Zealand oculd not act in isolation, argued that global solutions were called for. Mr Lange maintained New Zealand could, with other South Pacific countries, show an example to the super-Powers in barring nuclear weapons from their region. Mr Lange opened the de-

bate with a resume of events to date: the Labour Government’s nuclear-free policy, the low state of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, and reactions to his recently completed twoweek visit to the United Nations headquarters in New York, to Britain, India, and New Caledonia.

He assured the House that two countries of similar backgrounds, such as shared by New Zealand and the United States, could work through the contradiction facing the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance with New Zealand’s ban on nuclear warship visits.

He repeated that he had had an assurance from the United States Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz, that he would not force the issue, and maintained that both countries were exercising restraint in withholding responses to the more “hysterical, against-the-in-terests-of-New Zealand comments” made by

“others.” Mr Lange said New Zealand was giving a continuing commitment to a conventional alliance between the A.N.Z.U.S. partners, as the present Triad military exercise showed. “There should be no doubt as to this Government’s commitment to A.N.Z.U.5.,” he said. “We have no intention to leave A.N.Z.U.S. We have no mandate to leave A.N.Z.U.S.”

He accused Mr Cooper of having tunnel vision on the issue. A.N.Z.U.S. had become a “trigger word” evoking nuclear warships and port calls, but it was more than that, said Mr Lange.

He considered his overseas trip had established in the eyes of other democracies the role New Zealand should have, and for which it could hold its head high. “This country is going to be tall in the world, not mean and low,” he said.