Hawke’s stand on MX issue unpopular

Press, 7 February 1985, Page 8

Hawke’s stand on MX issue unpopular

NZPA-AAP Washington The Australian Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, who is entering a crucial round of talks with senior members of the Reagan Administration, remains determined to withdraw his Government’s promise of co-operation in the monitoring of American MX nuclear missile tests.

He has apparently chosen to ignore an increasing groundswell of public opinion against the backdown, and his main consideration is the advice that he could suffer a humiliating defeat in his caucus by sticking to his original decision.

Newspaper editorials throughout Australia on Tuesday condemned Mr Hawke’s U-turn, asserting it imperilled Australia’s credibility and reliability as an ally, and warning that Labour could find itself out of office for years into the future. Similar sentiments were expressed by callers who besieged radio talk-back programmes during the day to criticise Mr Hawke’s decision made in Brussels

after a telephone conversation with a New South Wales Right-wing numbers supremo, Senator Graham Richardson. Australian officials were not clear exactly when the MX issue would come up for discussion, but obviously it would have to be either during talks with the Defence Secretary, Mr Caspar Weinberger, or later when Mr Hawke has meetings scheduled with President Reagan and the Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz.

The Administration, already angered by the New Zealand Government’s ban on visits by nuclear-capable United States warships, will not welcome the backdown by a treaty partner which until now it has confidently regarded as a sympathetic ally. The Administration is clearly concerned about what a State Department spokesman, Mr Bernard Kalb, described at a briefing as the “ripple effect” — the spread of anti-nuclear influence to other allies including Australia, Japan, and perhaps some members

of N.A.T.O. “We believe that alliances require interaction of military forces and equitable burden sharing,” he said.

“Some Western countries have anti-nuclear and other movements which seek to diminish defence co-opera-tion among the allied states. “We hope that our response to New Zealand would signal that the course these movements advocate would not be cost free in terms of security relationships with the United States.”

However, Mr Kalb was unable to comment when asked whether denial of Australian airports, for the purpose of monitoring the MX tests, would . be regarded in the same light as the New Zealand ban. “I have just come out here unarmed, you might say, on that particular subject,” he said. Interestingly, Mr Speakes referred to Australia’s decision to cancel the A.N.Z.U.S. Sea Eagle naval exercise after the United States withdrew from it as evidence of Australian support for

nuclear ship visits. He said he did not believe the cancellation of the exercise, to have been held next month, had been at the request of the United States, although he was sure there would have been consultations “all along” on the question.

Senator William Cohen (Republican, Maine) appeared on United States television yesterday suggesting the United States could release for sale such items as stockpiled surplus butter, which would compete with one of New Zealand’s main exports.

Australian officials said yesterday that Australia would flatly oppose the use of any such trade sanctions against New Zealand which, they said, remained a country of immense importance to Australia.

They also recalled that Mr Hawke had already said that Australia would discuss with New Zealand their future bilateral defence relationship which was important not only to the region but to the world.