Govt accused of secret deal

Press, 10 April 1987, Page 1

Govt accused of secret deal

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington The Government has been accused of doing “a secret deal” with the United States to allow the blanket clearance of military aircraft using the Christchurch base of the United States Naval Support Force Antarctica. The charge was macle by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bolger, and came during two days of argument inside and outside Parliament on whether the Government was reneging on its nonnuclear policies.

It was denied by the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, who said references to any such secret agreement to safeguard the future of the base at Christchurch were false.

Mr Bolger conceded that it was "highly improbable” any United States aircraft, military or civilian, using the American facilities was nucleararmed.

On Wednesday, Mr Lange gave Parliament a categorical assurance that he had not received advice from the United

States administration on the possibility that the base might be moved. But yesterday Mr Bolger said the Government had received such advice — in the form of a telek from its Embassy staff in Washington on September 11, 1986.

That telex had contained a record of a meeting he had had with Mr George Armitage, Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, Department of Defence. Mr Bolger said he had taken an Embassy official with him to this meeting as a matter of courtesy, and subsequently a transcript had been sent to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr Mervyn Norrish, in Wellington. Mr Lange’s request not to talk about this telex was remarkable, Mr Bolger said. Only two years ago Mr Lange had stumped the world trumpeting his non-nuclear policies. Now the Government was trying to adopt the National Party’s policy towards nuclear weapons of* accepting United States

policies of neither confirm nor deny. “The public won’t accept this hypocrisy,” Mr Bolger said.

It was nonsense for Mr Lange to give a blanket clearance to Support Force flights because clause 10 of the New Zealand Nuclear-Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Bill now before Parliament required him to be satisfied in the case of each individual flight. “Mr Lange wants to avoid having to make that decision on a plane-by-plane basis,” Mr Bolger said. “But his blanket clearance conforms to the United States neither confirm nor deny policy which he says is unacceptable.” Only considerations of dollars and cents were preventing the Government from offending the United States further on trade or defence while now outside the A.N.Z.U.S. defence alliance. The National Party had never wanted to be outside the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance in the first place, he said.