John Armstrong: Muddying the waters over warship visits

Still waters run deep when it comes to the public's attachment to New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy. Just how deep could be plumbed by this week's misinterpretation - deliberate in some instances - of a few innocuous remarks by Sir Geoffrey Palmer about the desirability of an American naval vessel soon visiting a New Zealand port.

Already under fire for watering down New Zealand's steadfast opposition to whaling of any kind, the former Labour Prime Minister suddenly found himself accused of trying to weaken another icon of national identity.

Apart from one reference to the nuclear-free law being important and symbolic "in its day", Sir Geoffrey's comments were otherwise unremarkable. He was probably astonished that they created headlines. He was certainly horrified to see them resurrecting old battles on the eve of the Prime Minister's visit to Washington.

Sir Geoffrey's statement that a port visit would be "desirable" was rapidly translated on both sides of the political fence as him arguing for a change in the anti-nuclear law.

Act's Heather Roy, who is Associate Defence Minister, went as far as to claim Sir Geoffrey was backing Act's call for the repeal of the landmark 1987 legislation which formalised the Labour Government's ban on visits by nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered warships.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the Greens declared no United States warship of any kind was welcome, while John Minto described the former Prime Minister's comments as "unprincipled".

Sir Geoffrey can do a lot of things. But he doesn't do unprincipled.

He was certainly not advocating any change to the anti-nuclear policy. He doesn't need to do so. Whether the Americans send ships here is purely a matter of their choosing. That has been the case for the past 19 years.

In 1991, the US removed all nuclear weapons from its surface naval vessels, confining such firepower to ballistic nuclear missiles on its nuclear-powered submarines. Along with those submarines, other surface vessels - principally aircraft carriers - were still shut out by New Zealand's tandem ban on nuclear-powered vessels.

The upshot was that all the Prime Minister had to do to determine if a ship could enter New Zealand's coastal waters was to consult Jane's Fighting Ships, the reference bible on the world's navies.

Other nuclear powers - namely Britain and France - have had no problem with the law. Their vessels have since made port calls.

The US, however, bristled at what it saw as New Zealand dictating the deployment of its warships and undermining its "neither confirm nor deny" policy - the charade which allows the Americans to send ships to supposedly non-nuclear Japan.

Sir Geoffrey - now in Washington at an International Whaling Commission meeting - was concerned enough about the way his comments were being treated to have written a clarifying statement to be read to journalists making inquiries.

That makes it crystal clear that he was not advocating a change in policy, instead simply saying changed attitudes towards nuclear matters worldwide now made a ship visit possible.

What is really at stake here, however, is the mending of the extensive military ties between Washington and Wellington which existed before the bust-up of Anzus in the 1980s.

The restoration of such links is hotly opposed in some political quarters. The easiest way to try to stop that happening is to scare the public into thinking the anti-nuclear policy is under threat. Sir Geoffrey unwittingly provided the platform for others to do that.