Jim Bolger: Bury the hatchet and talk

Jim Bolger

New Zealand has yet to gain approval from Washington to start negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Our interest in such an agreement is obvious, as the US is New Zealand's largest trading partner after Australia and the major source of inward foreign direct investment.

Those of us working to encourage the negotiation of such an agreement, an ambition shared by our major political parties, are told either obliquely or otherwise that New Zealand's legislation that bans nuclear-powered ships from our ports is a barrier to achieving that goal. So we must talk about it.

I intend in a spirit of openness to discuss this issue not with the intention of seeking an immediate answer - the problem has endured through six prime ministers and four presidents, so if it were simple to resolve it would have been resolved long ago.

Nor do I raise the issue to in any way influence the election.

I raise the issue because it would be false to discuss trade agreements without discussing New Zealand's anti-nuclear legislation and the US reaction to it these past 20 years.

Official US policy from the beginning has been to separate trade and security matters. I applaud that, but some public comment and private discussions suggest the separation is not complete.

A short time back, a talented young New Zealand woman who is studying for her PhD at Harvard University came to interview me on my understanding of the development of New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance.

I told her that the potential for nuclear horror was reinforced by issues like the Cuban missile crisis, the escalation of Cold War tensions and especially the growing nuclear stockpile.

Nuclear winter scenarios were written and talked about and there was mounting concern about the dangers of atmospheric nuclear testing and the determination of nations like France to carry out nuclear tests in our Pacific backyard.

All of this, I told her, and much more was the lead-up to the majority of New Zealanders expressing great concern about nuclear weapons, and that led to New Zealand enacting its anti-nuclear legislation.

That legislation was a great disappointment to many of New Zealand's friends, but we didn't walk away from our wider responsibilities to the world community.

New Zealand has continued to remain engaged and has sent its troops and peacekeepers to wars and conflicts around the world.

I cannot conceive any circumstances that could justify the use of nuclear weapons today.

That said, we don't eschew the peaceful use of explosives because in other circumstances they can be used as deadly weapons. Neither do we forbid biological research because in the hands of evil people the science could be perverted to produce biological weapons.

So from my perspective, articulated when I was Prime Minister, we can agree to ban nuclear weapons; the issue then for New Zealand is the safety of nuclear propulsion.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 the first President Bush ordered the removal of nuclear weapons from all US surface vessels. The British did likewise.

My Government therefore appointed a Royal Commission under the chairmanship of the late Justice Somers to evaluate the safety of nuclear propulsion.

The commission after 12 months of study, and having received and heard evidence from around the world, reported that nuclear propulsion was safe to all intents and purposes.

I was not alone in the view that we could and should draw a distinction between nuclear weapons and nuclear propulsion.

In 1992, David Lange's book, Nuclear Free - The New Zealand Way was published. Anyone who wants to understand some of the thinking in New Zealand at that time should read the book.

In his book, David Lange writes concerning his party's nuclear policy: "The ban on nuclear weapons I welcomed. The ban on nuclear propulsion gave me problems. Only the US brought nuclear-powered vessels to New Zealand. I thought it sensible that the [Labour] Party's policy should take account of the dangers to public safety posed by nuclear reactors, and that there might well be grounds for banning nuclear-powered vessels from our ports on that account.

"But it seemed idle to raise that kind of concern into a pillar of foreign policy. We should be able to distinguish between the need to guard against the immediate dangers of nuclear reactors, and our wish to counter the threat posed by political decisions to build, deploy and threaten the use of nuclear weapons.

"A stand against the arms race was the legitimate concern of foreign policy. But I could not see how the arguments I mustered against the deployment of nuclear weapons could properly be used to justify a ban on nuclear propulsion."

I agree with that sentiment, more so today when most newscasts are led by reports of efforts to stop countries becoming nuclear powers, and growing concern about the possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear devices.

The world is now a very different place. The evil empire has gone and since September 11, fighting terrorism requires a different approach. Here our history of sharing intelligence comes to the fore.

To prevent terrorist attacks all who are committed to their defeat should share the knowledge gained from their intelligence sources.

It is an area of co-operation where New Zealand has continued to be involved and has worked and will continue to work with the US and other like-minded nations.

The greatest risk to the world is the spread of nuclear weapons. The justification for the Iraqi War was the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, including the capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

For months intense negotiations have been held to try to persuade both Iran and North Korea to abandon plans to develop the capacity to build nuclear weapons, because if they do others will want to follow.

Where to from here? How do we put the "nuclear" issue behind us so that we can concentrate on the difficult and dangerous challenges both countries face in today's post-September 11 world?

Do we have sufficient confidence in each other to agree to re-examine our 20-year disagreement in an open and engaged manner? Or are our positions so fixed, our minds so made up on both sides that no change can be contemplated?

I am certain of only one thing and that is: to change the status quo, if that is considered desirable, then both capitals, not one, have to contemplate a variation of their position.

* This is an edited version of a speech entitled United States - New Zealand: Partners in the 21st Century given at the Gateway to America Conference at the SkyCity Conference Centre in Auckland last Friday.