Thread: John Key's shock resignation as prime minister of New Zealand

Originally Posted by thaimeme

During his time, he was quite adamant regarding nuclear war ships visiting NZ and it's and offshore limits - U.S, U.K, French, Russian, Canadian, etc........fuck 'em all!

Ruffled a few feathers amongst the so called traditional allies and foes. And they still didn't get it.

Remembering that time and the controversies with the French in the Pacific - was down in Mt. Roskill [from Kerikeri] visiting extended family that morning of the sabotaged bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour.....and the insipid ensuing politics [Frogs/Kiwis] that followed.

I think that you are misremembering some of the details* and its late at night and I can’t be bothered looking it all up but what I remember is; In the early 80’s under the Lange government NZ declared itself as a nuclear free zone and USA decided to test NZ. The US purposely sent the USS Buchanan to visit NZ, which NZ basically said your welcome into our ports if you can confirm that you have no nuclear capabilities on the ship. The captain had a line that went something along the line of “we can neither confirm or deny that we have nuclear capability… blah blah blah”. So, the US navy was basically told you cannot dock in our ports if you cannot confirm that you do not have nuclear capability on board the ship. This seriously pissed the Americans off and made them essentially cancel or suspend the ANZUS treaty. Which pissed the Australians right off (not because of their very poor rugby skills or their great ability to bowl underarm but they thought the ANZUS treaty was something worth having).

The French and the Rainbow Warrior is something that I need to address tomorrow while I am somewhat more sober than I am now, but I have strong view on the whole charade that looks like it doesn’t match ENT’s point of view.

*to be fair I am probably not remembering some of this correctly either.

Originally Posted by Barty

I have strong view on the whole charade that looks like it doesn’t match ENT’s point of view.

*to be fair I am probably not remembering some of this correctly either.

Fair enough, it was 30 years ago, and without looking on the net, the details of the event escape me too.

Originally Posted by Barty

Originally Posted by thaimeme

During his time, he was quite adamant regarding nuclear war ships visiting NZ and it's and offshore limits - U.S, U.K, French, Russian, Canadian, etc........fuck 'em all!

Ruffled a few feathers amongst the so called traditional allies and foes. And they still didn't get it.

Remembering that time and the controversies with the French in the Pacific - was down in Mt. Roskill [from Kerikeri] visiting extended family that morning of the sabotaged bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour.....and the insipid ensuing politics [Frogs/Kiwis] that followed.

I think that you are misremembering some of the details* and its late at night and I can’t be bothered looking it all up but what I remember is; In the early 80’s under the Lange government NZ declared itself as a nuclear free zone and USA decided to test NZ. The US purposely sent the USS Buchanan to visit NZ, which NZ basically said your welcome into our ports if you can confirm that you have no nuclear capabilities on the ship. The captain had a line that went something along the line of “we can neither confirm or deny that we have nuclear capability… blah blah blah”. So, the US navy was basically told you cannot dock in our ports if you cannot confirm that you do not have nuclear capability on board the ship. This seriously pissed the Americans off and made them essentially cancel or suspend the ANZUS treaty. Which pissed the Australians right off (not because of their very poor rugby skills or their great ability to bowl underarm but they thought the ANZUS treaty was something worth having).

The French and the Rainbow Warrior is something that I need to address tomorrow while I am somewhat more sober than I am now, but I have strong view on the whole charade that looks like it doesn’t match ENT’s point of view.

*to be fair I am probably not remembering some of this correctly either.

Splitting hairs, mate.
Very late night/early morning.
The blast occurred about 3:30 AM.

Cheers.

David Lange was the acceptable face of the Labour party in the 1980's - a great speaker, but the non-nuclear to anti-nuclear policy was a bit of a smokescreen. NZ's geopolitical position allowed them the indulgence of a bit of grandstanding, which was perfectly understandable. Things were not so simple in the Northern Hemisphere.

Roger Douglas, Richard "Mad Dog" Prebble and David Caygill were the real movers and shakers during that period, and they opened the doors ...