Anti-N legislation ‘watered down’

Press, 7 December 1985, Page 3

Anti-N legislation ‘watered down’

NZPA staff correspondent Canberra New Zealand has already bowed to United States pressure to alter its antinuclear legislation, and could water it down even further, said the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, yesterday. He told a press conference in Canberra that the proposal he had taken to Washington in September detailing how New Zealand would decide whether a visiting warship was nuclear-armed had been changed to accommodate United States concerns. When asked whether the draft bill now drawn up by the Government would be “watered down” after submissions to the Parliamentary select committee in the coming months, Mr Palmer said the committee might want to change it. “It (the draft bill) goes to a select committee. Submissions will be called for. I expect there will be a lot of submissions on this matter,” he said. “The select committee may wish to make alterations to the bill as a result of those submissions.” “It depends on the sub-

missions, it depends on the position taken by various Governments who may have their points of view to be put.” Mr Palmer said he did not expect foreign Governments would want to put submissions to a New Zealand Parliamentary committee, “but those foreign Governments can make their views known to the New Zealand Government very clearly”. Insisting New Zealand had done its best to find a solution to the row with the United States, he said New Zealand had already changed the clause referring to visits by nuclearcapable ships from a position, he took to Washington two months ago. “There were a number of provisions which detailed the consultations the Prime Minister would go through. All that material has been deleted,” he said. i “There is no requirement on him to receive reports from the Chief of Staff or any other named group. That has been deleted. “What remains is a provision that gives him power to approve the entry of a vessel where he is satisfied

it is not carrying nuclear weapons.” He said the change had been made because the United States was concerned about what might happen to the reports, but otherwise there had been no other changes. Mr Palmer said the legislation ratified treaties on such matters as the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone, disarmament, and nuclear test bans to give them the force of law, and only one clause referred to the entry of nuclear weapons to New Zealand’s ports. He rejected the suggestion that New Zealand was scuttling A.N.Z.U.S. or that by enshrining its nucleararms ban in law it was in fact what was destroying the treaty. He said there were legal difficulties in bringing A.N.Z.U.S. to an end, the Americans had not been specific in what exactly they would do if the bill was unacceptable to them, and that to talk of the end of A.N.Z.U.S. was prematlire.

“A.N.Z.U.S. is an alliance that exists in a treaty, and it remains until some step is taken to remove it,” Mr Palmer said.