Govt is urged to toughen N-ship bill

Press, 24 June 1986, Page 31

Govt is urged to toughen N-ship bill

PA Wellington Legislation banning nuclear warships from New Zealand should be toughened to allow judicial review of any ship visits, said the Campaign Against Nuclear Warships. Under the New Zealand Nuclear-Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Bill, the Prime Minister must be “satisfied” a warship was not nucleararmed. “It is doubtful that a more minimal expression of a ban to nuclear-armed warships could ever be devised,” campaign spokesman, Mr Nicky Hager, told Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Select Committee, which is considering the bill.

The word “satisfied” was “more like an invitation to antagonistic foreign Governments to find ways to compromise the policy.” “The weak wording is presumably intended as a concession to overseas criticism of the nuclearfree policy,” Mr Hager said.

The bill should be changed so that the warship ban was clear and definite.

“The ban on duclear- ' armed warships, -'when it is enacted into legislation,

should be capable of review by the courts,” Mr Hager said. “Although in defencerelated areas the courts may in some specific instances decide not to become involved, the possibility of judicial review should at least be open.” The prime concern of the Government in passing the bill should be to provide an effective ban on nuclear-armed or nuclear powered warships. “If in doubt, keep them out,” Mr Hager said.