No ships for defence—M.P.

Press, 30 March 1989, Page 14

No ships for defence —M.P.

PA Wellington New Zealand will be without any home-based operational frigates for four months from May, a situation the member of Parliament for Pencarrow, Ms Davies, says is "frankly ridiculous.” From May 1, H.M.N.Z.S. Waikato and Wellington, with the refuelling ship H.M.N.Z.S. Endeavour, will leave for a fourmonth annual Far East deployment. The frigates Canterbury and Southland are laid up in Auckland undergoing extensive refits, and will not be available for operational use. Ms Davies, chairman of the Defence and Foreign Affairs select committee at Parliament, said if the frigates were so vital to New Zealand, then they were needed within New Zealand’s sphere of interest, which in her mind was not the Far East.

“The whole thing is amazing. We are told we need frigates for the defence of the nation and a role in the South Pacific, and here we have them swanning away in SouthEast Asia.”

The Wellington and Endeavour are scheduled to

visit Vanuatu at the same time as the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, while the Waikato will visit the Tuvalu group. A spokeswoman for Mr Palmer said it was only coincidental that the frigates would be visiting at the same time.

The three ships will later sail for Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia, Truk, then Hong Kong, before South Korean port calls to Inchon, Shinhae and Pusan, then Japanese calls to Tokyo, Kure, Kagashima and Fukuoka.

The three ships will take part in New Zealand Week at the Asia-Pacific Expo, which will run from June 18.

The ships will then call at Singapore before taking part in the annual Five Power Defence Arrangement Starfish exercise in the South China Sea before returning home through Brunei, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. A Navy spokesman, Lieutenant Lawrence Tye, said the deployment was essentially a “flag waving” exercise which took in the annual Starfish series off the Malay Peninsula.