Apology to PM for submarine figures

The Defence Force yesterday apologised to the Prime Minister for the way it released information about submarine sightings.

On Sunday the Defence Force issued information which said that since 1970 there had been 15 detections which included nine submarines from the eastern bloc.

This contradicted Helen Clark's statement this month that the Air Force Orions had spent decades looking for submarines without detecting any.

"Clearly there has been a misunderstanding ... if this has caused embarrassment, then we apologise," the Defence Force said yesterday.

Helen Clark responded on Sunday by saying all the visits were declared, meaning the Government had been notified of their presence.

Yesterday she said the Soviet submarines had visited ports in the South Pacific and had invited visitors aboard.

"Any reasonable person would assume that when you say you haven't detected any submarines, you would be talking about covert submarine activity," she said.

"I mean, this is like saying we've had a navigation notice that a tanker is sailing and, gee whiz, we've found it with binoculars."

Project Sirius, a $568 million detection upgrade for the Orions, was planned by the previous Government, but the Labour-Alliance coalition cancelled it.

At a post-cabinet press conference, Helen Clark said the information released by the Defence Force had followed "a number of pejorative statements, mainly from retired personnel in recent weeks" about the Government's defence policy.

"It's obvious that among the retired personnel there is a great deal of activity. I'm sure that serving personnel well understand what an oath of loyalty as a member of the armed forces means," she said.

But Helen Clark said yesterday that Air Force Orions would be re-equipped with modern submarine detection equipment if a hostile power threatened New Zealand.

"There is no evidence of any intent, by anyone, to deploy covertly a blue water submarine capacity in the South Pacific," she said.

"If at some future time a hostile power emerged as a threat to us ... we would have the ability to upgrade the Orions with the kind of equipment Project Sirius had."

"Right now it is not a priority to do that because there is no evidence of covert submarine activity in this part of the world," Helen Clark said.

"We have no reason to suggest that there would be any hostile activity whatsoever.

"If at some future point such a threat emerged of course everyone springs to the defence of their interests and would cough up the money."

National's defence spokesman Max Bradford accused Helen Clark of forcing an apology from the Defence Force.

"It is absurd and obscene that the Prime Minister has extracted an apology for information which was made public in response to a legitimate request under the Official Information Act," he said in a statement.

"Helen Clark may be able to fool some people with her own created version of reality, but when it comes to the defence of our country the stakes are too high to bet our futures on a fiction created to please one person's view of the world."

Helen Clark said she didn't know what Mr Bradford was talking about, and denied that she had asked the Defence Force for an apology. "I didn't demand an apology.

"It was on my desk when I arrived this morning," she said.

- NZPA