[Kiwigal]

It is definitely about time the suspension ended. Ideally, NZ should let US ships, nuclear-powered or otherwise, come to NZ. No wonder we are forbidden from undertaking joint military exercises when we place such restrictions on American naval vessels. Unfortunately, to rehash my point about the failure to appreciate the distinction between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, if the policy were reversed on nuclear propulsion there would almost certainly be some bad reporting and green party panic. The combination of all that would be that a story would appear somewhere overseas that NZ was in the middle of a nuclear meltdown. Uh oh, no more tourism. This would be similar to the debacle when Ruapehu erupted and even in Australia they thought the whole of the North Island was going up.

Many NZers are very insular - something we accuse Americans of! - and extremely suspicious of new technology. Not that nuclear power is new technology but hey, it's less than a hundred years old right? And besides, our worthy leader has reassured us that no-one will attack us anyway so why do we need to do joint exercises with the US. Military friendship has nothing to do with economic growth, if you are on the left in politics.

[New Zealander]

I don’t quite agree that New Zealanders have a fear of technology – we’ve embraced a lot of new things very quickly – like the Internet, or eftpos etc. – it’s just those things that meddle with humans born doubts – and I think only then if they are coupled with an ideological cause. Human born doubts are things like fear of flying – which is unfairly associated with risk – but I don’t think an undue number of New Zealanders are afraid to fly because that would be a personal fear that doesn’t compromise any belief. On the other hand you get compromising things like 1080 poison drops, cell phone towers, nuclear power and genetic engineering. Living in a clean, mostly unspoiled country with a fair health system, that’s when the shit hits the fan – ‘what ya mean you’re going to put one of those microwaves on a stick cancer towers next to a school?! You bastards – we deserve a bit of a fair go here!’ It’s a funny thing that not many of these people are really afraid of the threatening thing specifically for themselves – even if they are, it’s well hidden under a concern for others or the environment or something of that nature.

It’s a real shame to see un-pragmatic movements getting established – but the people mean well. I think the thing that pisses me off the most is the peace movement, closely followed by the anti-GE movement – these are things that go against our history. If I wanted to be a bit unfair, and a little snide, I’d say that the people who make up these movements have little knowledge of the things they protest against, aside from a predisposition to wear worn out old West German Army surplus jackets, and a tendency for extensively hybridised crops of a certain spiky leafed plant. And yet these people are 'interesting' enough to get TV news time.

It actually seems we have no need to worry about revoking our anti-nuclear status to rejoin ANZUS – at least, technically. It was 1991 when the US decided to stop carrying nukes onboard warships - which happened in 1994. The US is going to have about 30% of its navy using nuclear power - but that is strictly limited by necessity: only submarines and aircraft carriers are powered by a nuclear reactor. Everything else, from oilers to amphibious assault ships to destroyers: all have been capable - for some time now - of visiting New Zealand without breaching the anti-nuclear act.

The only reason it hasn't all been sorted out is misunderstanding and that no one in the higher levels of the US government has bothered to take the time to direct anyone to sort it out. I guess pride features a bit there too, and that there seems to be no great reason for it in the US.

It's kind of affected our interoperability a bit - we keep similar military standards with the US, because we share the common standards of Australia - so our rifles fire the same ammunition as US rifles, etc. We still have problems with the very specific requirements that the US demands - we needed to install a special networked target identification system in the frigate that went to the Gulf to police the sanctions against Iraq - it's the kind of gear that stops friendly fire incidents - luckily we had one. The little know story about this gear is that when Shipley decided to send the SAS to assist the US in attacking Iraq the second time around we had the problem of needing the special aircraft version of the same system - in a week. No worries - a team of technicians ripped the ship version out of the frigate and shoved it in the C-130 Herc - the people who make the unit are still scratching their heads about that one - it's supposed to take a couple of months to install one of those things!