Wide defence gap troubles Australia

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - The defence white paper released by Prime Minister John Howard yesterday contrasts Canberra's intention to remain a maritime and air power with Wellington's increasing neglect of its Navy and Air Force.

Australia will buy an arsenal of weapons and equipment, including new warships and strike jets. But, says the white paper, it would regret any New Zealand decision not to maintain at least some capable air and naval combat capabilities. Such forces would allow a more significant contribution to be made to protecting shared strategic interests.

The white paper's language understates the concern felt widely in Australia that New Zealand is on the verge of abandoning any form of credible defence, given the axe hanging above the RNZAF's combat aircraft, the cancellation of plans to upgrade the P3 Orions, and uncertainty over the frigate fleet.

A newly released report of a Centre for International Strategic Analysis seminar in Canberra all but writes off New Zealand, despite the white paper's praise for the Kiwi Timor force, increased spending on the Army, and the quality of the country's highly professional service personnel.

The centre's report warns of an increasingly fragile and unstable neighbourhood that Australia will largely have to deal with on its own. Australia now found itself surrounded by states that were unviable (several of the states of the South Pacific and possibly East Timor), unstable (Papua New Guinea and Indonesia) or useless (New Zealand), the report said.

National's defence spokesman, Wayne Mapp, said the white paper's relegation of New Zealand's importance demonstrated how the Government was writing the country out of strategic debate in the region.

But Defence Minister Mark Burton played down the white paper's reservations while conceding it had accurately defined differences in defence outlook.

The white paper's concern also coincides with a New Zealand Centre for Strategic Studies paper which concludes that claims to an Anzac alliance rest on sand.

The paper points to what it describes as a deep transtasman rift on defence issues, despite the strongly held view that the old Anzac firm would always be in business, as demonstrated in Timor.