Former Defence chief under further attack

Press, 11 March 1987, Page 9

Former Defence chief under further attack

By

BRENDON BURNS

in Wellington

The former Defence chief. Sir Ewan Jamieson, came under further attack yesterday for his views on the Defence White Paper. The Minister of Defence, Mr O’Flynn, criticised Sir Ewan’s description of the Government’s defence policies as “weakly armed isolation.”

"That’s an outrage coming from that particular source because this country was totally weakly armed until this Government provided it with some arms,” said Mr O’Flynn. Mr O’Flynn was the first Government speaker in a snap debate in Parliament yesterday which the Opposition had sought on the White Paper. He said the visit of Australia’s Defence Minister, Mr Beazley, last week should have made it clear ’that New Zealanckyas not

standing alone in defence.

As Minister, Mr O’Flynn said, he had approved the purchase of new machineguns and ordered replacement rifles for ones more than 20 years old.

New Zealand had also gone out of its way to not persuade any other country to adopt its antinuclear policies. “I am actually rather saddened to reply to an officer who not very long ago was, through me, the Government’s principal adviser,” Mr O’Flynn told the House.

The acting Opposition spokesman on defence, Mr Don McKinnon, had opened the debate charging that the Defence Review indicated the Government had abrogated responsibility for the defence of New Zealand. He said it was not a defence document.

“It is merely a political document designed to sneak them past

ber.” Mr McKinnon said the review’s definition of defence was far too narrow in saying that there was no foreseeable threat to New Zealand’s security over the next decade. He said a British Defence White Paper had made a similar forecast in 1935 — and within 10 years 50 million people had died in World War 11.

New Zealand defence reviews had in the 30 years since they were introduced been brought together by the Defence Council, but this year's White Paper had been “knee-capped” by the Prime Minister’s Department.

“The Ministry of Defence had very little to do with this review,” said Mr McKinnon.

The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, said the Defence Review was a political document, following up advice from officials.

“The Government of this country gets advice but it does not surrender the democratic majority Government to the behest of individual people and that is because you have three defence establishments merged into one. It is a sort of a theological job, three in one. And then they have different axes to grind, and different arrows to point and different ships to direct.” The Acting Leader of the Opposition, Mr Gair, said the Prime Minister and his Government were suffering from “persecution paranoia” over its defence policies. Mr Gair also said Mr Lange’s policies had done nothing to encourage better defence relationships with New Zealand’s allies.

“His policies and his defence review do nothing to give confidence to our allies that we are serious about our responsibilities in the South Pacific,” said Ml> Gair.