N-stand support promised

Press, 6 March 1985, Page 8

N-stand support promised

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

Peter Garrett, the skinhead anti-nuclear campaigner and lead singer in Midnight Oil, likes to hold press conferences in botanic gardens. He thinks the restful atmosphere suits his message. That may be good policy in sunny Australia, his home country, but the capricious Wellington weather let him and the oganisers of his New Zealand tour down yesterday. Muggy conditions and grey skies threatening rain forced everyone indoors to the Begonia House tearooms where the peace was shattered by a small boy in noisy dispute with his mother. So the reporters shuffled closer and Garrett, perched on a fashionable cane chair against a background of tropical plants, held court.

The contrast was perfect: the fiddly furniture against

Garrett’s lean commitment to his cause.

A lawyer, he stood for the Australian Senate for the Nuclear Disarmament Party in last year’s elections and narrowly missed a seat. He has been brought to New Zealand, his costs met but no extras, by the Peace Movement Aotearoa in association with the Student Arts Council to show support for the Government’s warship ban. To reassure those New Zealanders concerned that overseas trade might be lost in the fall-out from the A.N.Z.U.S. dispute, he said the Nuclear Disarmament Party and the wider peace movement were organising a system of “positive girlcotts.”

The word, a cute antonym to “boycott,” was coined by an American women’s magazine. Basically Garrett’s plan is that Australians who agree with New Zealand’s stand be encouraged to buy New Zealand products.

This was already happening to a limited extent in Sydney and Melbourne, he said.

Garrett urged New Zealanders to support the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, absolutely. He said Mr Lange was already coming under considerable pressure but that he was responding to it appropriately and strongly. “We are dealing with an extraordinary puppet show on the world stage. A giant behemoth appears from the Right and squashes the little butterfly that has jumped up from the Left,” he said. He suggested that the heavy American reaction to New Zealand could do no other than further the antinuclear cause because people would respond to New Zealand’s predicament. New Zealand has moved into history. Its stand was being talked about in Australian pubs and kitchens. With determination, the policy would succeed and become an example to other

countries. Garrett said the decision of the Australian Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, to postpone the A.N.Z.U.S. council meeting in Canberra was regrettable. He would have hoped the Australian Government might have shown more sympathy towards New Zealand. “It is a matter of great concern to many Australians that we should be seen to be putting our relationship with New Zealand at risk by acting at the behest of the senior partner in the treaty,” he said. There has been speculation that Mr Hawke was happy to put off the talks because he was aware there might be pro-New Zealand demonstrations outside them involving the Left wing of his own party. Garrett confirmed that the peace movement had intended to “take action” and that it would have lobbied heavily for support among those Labour members known to sympathise

with the Nev; Zealand position.

He also confirmed that a joint Australian-New Zealand peace squadron would attempt to block MX missile testing in the Tasman Sea by moving on to the test site.

Recent American information was that they would have “one or two days lead-time” to organise vessels. After that, the only limitation would be that no lives be put at risk. Garrett said he was prepared to sail in one of the boats himself but that he was not looking forward to it because he suffered from sea-sickness.

He said the most exciting feature of the nuclear debate in New Zealand was that the gulf of opinion apparent in other countries between the politicians and the public did not exist here. Even “the millionaire Bob Jones” was opposed to nuclear weapons in New Zealand. That would not happen elsewhere, he said.