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Prime Minister Helen Clark is not contemplating offering a safe berth to a stricken Japanese whaling ship should its owners want it to be towed to New Zealand.
The Nisshin Maru has been disabled in Antarctic waters since a fire broke out on Thursday, prompting fears of an oil spill. The ship is carrying more than 1000 tonnes of fuel.
Assistance has been offered by Greenpeace and an American icebreaker, Helen Clark said yesterday, but the Japanese were saying they could cope.
Asked where the crippled ship should go, the Prime Minister said it "needs to be towed back to where it came from".
Asked if she ruled out giving it a berth in New Zealand, she said there had not been such a request.
Crew member Kazutaka Makita, 27, died in the fire aboard the ship, which is stranded close to a major penguin colony.
Maritime New Zealand spokesman Steve Corbett said yesterday that the risk of an environmental disaster was "relatively low".
Helen Clark said on Newstalk ZB that the whalers had better be able to cope with the situation now that they had turned down help.
"My advice is if you can't see a way of getting that boat out of there without some help either from the American vessel or from Greenpeace or from somebody else, the world is going to be very upset if there's a major spill in that area."
Later, at her post-Cabinet press conference, she took another swipe.
"One would hope that the fact that this season has been so ghastly for the Japanese whaling fleet might give cause for some reflection on whether they come back again."
- Additional reporting NZPA
