N.Z. buys Orion

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 5

N.Z. buys Orion

PA Auckland New Zealand has bought a second-hand Orion aircraft as the first step towards strengthening its defence forces after the withdrawal of American defence co-operation. The Minister of Defence, Mr O’Flynn, announced the purchase of the former Royal Australian Air Force Orion when he welcomed the Australian Minister of Defence, Mr Kim Beazley, at Auckland Airport last evening. He declined to reveal the price, but said the Orion was being bought from the manufacturer, Lockheed, and would cost $lO million to modernise. New Zealand’s five existing Orions are already undergoing a $lOO million modernisation at Whenuapai air base, near Auckland. Mr O’Flynn said the. Orion would be used to extend aerial surveillance of the Pacific, where the small island nation of Kiribati recently said it would allow Soviet fishing boats to ply its waters.

Mr O’Flynn intervened to announce the purchase of the Orion just after Mr Beazley had told accompanying Australian journalists that aerial surveillance of the Pacific was adequate. Mr Beazley said after Mr O’Flynn’s announcement that he was delighted with the decision, and that the matter was one of-the issues he wanted to raise with New Zealand Ministers.

Asked specifically about Kiribati, Mr Beazley said it

was a matter of continuing concern to the Australian Government that there should be “suitable international relations” in the Pacific.

“We see our relationship with New Zealand as very important to that end,” he said.

“There are developments that give us cause for concern. Clearly, that is an area in which we will pay very close attention,” Mr Beazley said. Mr O’Flynn said the urgent review of New Zealand’s defence needs would be considered by the Cabinet today. “We are prepared to take appropriate measures to compensate for the potential reduction of the cooperataion we have enjoyed with the United States,” he said.

Mr Beazley said, “Our talks will cover the range of co-operation, from exercises to industrial matters to defence scientific co-opera-tion.”

Mr Beazley, a former Aviation Minister who took over as Minister of Defence in December, will visit Whenuapai air base and Devonport naval base in Auckland today, and will go to Wellington tomorrow. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr McLay, who also arrived at Auckland Airport last evening after meeting Mr Beazley and other Ausralian leaders last week, said he believed Mr Beazley had come to press New Zealand to do more for its own defence.

“He is not prepared to spend more of the Australian taxpayers’ money on defence because of New Zealand’s decision to walk away from the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance,” Mr McLay said. “The fact that he is going to look at our own defence installations makes it quite clear that the Australian Government is not going to just accept New Zealand’s statements about what it can afford to do. “He wants to look at them on the ground,” Mr McLay said. “There is obviously in Australia still an astonishment at what New Zealand has done to A.N.Z.U.5.,” Mr McLay said. “The people I spoke to find it difficult to understand why New Zealand has gone this way.”