Frigate technology ‘obsolete’

Press, 10 February 1989, Page 2

Frigate technology ‘obsolete’

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in PARLIAMENT New Zealand is being fitted into buying obsolete technology if it buys Australian frigates, according to the Under-Secretary for Agriculture, Mr Ralph Maxwell. An opponent of frigates and a supporter of satellites for naval defence, Mr Maxwell said buying Australian frigates was more to benefit their dockyards than to advance the strategic security of the area. “New Zealanders are increasingly being left with this feeling

and all the affability of Australia’s Minister of Defence, Mr Kim Beazley, doesn’t change that,” he said. The critical question for Mr Beazley to answer was whether or not he saw a joint evaluation of Australia-New Zealand space programmes as a valid topic for discussion at the Anzac defence table. He could lift the calibre of the debate on this week’s visit if he could explain why there was so much enthusiasm for joint-venture frigates and so much reluctance

for joint-venture space science programmes, Mr Maxwell said. It was hard to take seriously Mr Beazley’s earlier comment that Australia’s space programme was a matter for Australia’s Minister of Science, and one on which, as Minister of Defence, he had no comment. Many thinking people on each side of the Tasman would argue that a co-operative approach to the affordable new space technologies and programmes would produce more regional security than any number of frigates, he said.