Editorial: Distant friends in high places

Opinion

In travel allowances this week, where he attended the nuclear security summit, Prime Minister John Key relayed to the accompanying press President Obama's remark that New Zealand had "well and truly earned" its place at the summit table.

In doing so he sounded a little like an awestruck teenager who has briefly held the hand of a pop star on a red carpet. We need to keep some perspective.

Key got what is known in diplomatic circles as the "greet-and-grip" - a momentary handshake and exchange of pleasantries illuminated by the blaze of flashguns.

He did also have meetings with Vice-President Joe Biden and, later, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, in which freeing up access to US markets was discussed, but much official finessing remains before tangible results will be announced.

Still, his reception should not be regarded as offhand: Obama has his hands full trying to build on his arms-reduction agreement with Russia and setting up protocols that will keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists.

Fortunately Key is not so mesmerised by the Obama charm that he wants to relax this country's ban on visits by nuclear-armed or nuclear powered naval vessels. The idea was floated this week by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who was the Deputy Prime Minister in the administration that imposed the ban in the 1980s. But Key says he doubts US warships will return to New Zealand ports "any time real soon".

Key has never been ardently anti-nuclear and was obliged to distance himself from his predecessor Don Brash's "gone by lunchtime" comment. It must gall the architects of the nuclear-free laws to see Key bathing in their reflected glory now. But it is good for the world to see that the policy endures. As the hostile public reaction to Brash's gaffe showed, the nuclear-free policy is dear to New Zealanders' hearts.

The past quarter-century has proven that the policy is also no hindrance to the development of trade and other links. But forged as it was in the crucible of Reagan-era nuclear paranoia, it has become a central part of our national identity. Politicians tamper with it at their peril.