Frigates

Press, 31 March 1989, Page 8

Frigates

Sir, —A while back a number of correspondents said we needed frigates to protect our merchant navy. Now that the sale of the Shipping Corporation has been announced, I would like to ask: “What merchant navy?"rr-Yours, etc., .

JOHN RING. March 23, 1989.

Sir, —Two of dur six children were bom in Christchurch (in 1962 and 1963) and we love your country and the .people that live there very much. We were so very proud of your country as you took mature world- leadership, by proclaiming yourselves a nuclear-free zone! Many towns and communities in our country are attempting to do the same thing. It has come to our attention that you are re-evaluating the most practical use of the -

ships in your navy. We do hope that, again, you will give the world direction by showing countries how naviqs can be put to practical use as emergency disaster relief vessels! Thank you for your fine past leadership. We look to see a peaceful, positive direction in which military vessels can be used. —Yours, etc., Dr and Mrs SAMUEL H. NEFF. Richmond, Indiana, March 18£.. 1989.

Sir, —You want our Government to treat Australia seriously” by|spending S2B on frigates and not considering neutrality (March 23). David Lange says that Australia’s Defence Minister, Kim Beazley, admits privately that frigates are unnecessary for South Pacific contingencies like Fiji, and his “basic concern related not to any specific threat.” His basic worry? "That New Zealand did have the option of going neutral!” (memorandum leaked by Jim Bolger, the “Dominion" November 3, 1988). Six suitably equipped Castle Corvettes (range 10,000 km) cost the same as one Australian frigate. You confuse “friendship with Australia” with avoiding neutrality and accepting Kim ' Beazley’s costly, unnecessary “protection scheme.” Finland and Sweden are neutral, but they enjoy close, extortion-free diplomatic and socio-economic relationships with Norway and Denmark, their Nordic N.A.T.O. Alliance brethren. In 1984 Finnish defence cost 1.5 per cent of G.N.P., and New Zealand’s, 1.9 per cent (compare with other alliance members: Norway, 2.9 per cent and Australia, 3.2 per cent — more than neutral Sweden’s 3.1 per cent). —Yours, etc.,

J. GALLAGHER. March 24, 1989.