No safety in nuclear policy

Press, 4 August 1987, Page 16

No safety in nuclear policy

The Labour Party continues to promote its anti-nuclear policy in the campaign for the General Election. As the Prime Minister expressed it in the televised debate on Sunday evening, the exclusion from New Zealand of ships that may be carrying nuclear weapons means that this country ceases to be a nuclear target. The Labour Party marked the passage of its nuclear-free zone legislation with an advertisement that proclaimed, “The simple reason for making New Zealand nuclear free was to make New Zealand safer ... The law will keep New Zealand nuclear free.”

If only these statements were true, the anti-nuclear policy would indeed be something to celebrate. Sad to say, there is no evidence to suggest that New Zealand is one jot safer as the result of the anti-nuclear proclamations and the anti-nuclear legislation.

A stroke of legislation does not remove New Zealand from the international arena. New Zealand remains as attractive, or unattractive, to any potentially hostile Power as it has always been. The variety of possible threats remains the same, up to and including a nuclear attack if a nuclear Power perceives its interests to require such an attack. All that the legislation has done, by confirming New Zealand’s break with the United States through the A.N.Z.U.S. alliance, is to ensure that no deterrence by a nuclear Power any

longer operates on New Zealand’s behalf. Worse then this, it ensures that no major Power is now linked with New Zealand’s interests in any practical, military way. To proclaim that New Zealand is in some way a safer place then it was three years ago, or than it would be under a National Government, is to foist a rather miserable confidence trick on electors. The fall-out from the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union demonstrated in reality what has always been known in theory: that radiation, whatever its source, is no respecter of national boundaries or "nuclear free” zones.

The point needs to be repeated that New Zealand has not gained in international stature or influence as a result of its nuclearfree delusions. The country has lost what small voice it had in the counsels of more powerful States. Its new impotence is becoming increasingly obvious in its trade dealings, in its waning importance even among small, close neighbours in the South Pacific.

The Labour Party’s policy has given away valuable, tested links between New Zealand and the rest of the world in exchange for the illusion that somehow an unenforceable law enhances the country’s safety. To pretend otherwise, especially in pursuit of electoral advantage, brings no credit to a Labour Party that claims to have the country’s best interests at heart.