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[WarBlade]

As for nuclear powered vehicles . . . if you choose to ignore the safety record of US and UK navies in maintaining their powerplants sans accident, by all means, stay reserved.  It still boils down to this: it is your nation's territorial waters that your government considers in such matters, and if they want to adopt a zero risk policy, so be it, that is sort of what they get paid to do: set policy. :)

*Scratches head*

I'll re-read whyBish's post to see how that one came about I think . . .

Foreigners generally take it as NZers mis-estimate the probability of nuclear accidents, but it is more that we have a higher cost in the event of such an event... and what is the benefit of allowing nuclear powered vehicles here?

It looks like a speculation of foreigners' perceptions that kiwis overestimate the likelihood of accidents. ;)

But you are right about the "zero risk" aspect, although system failure accidents, no matter how unlikely, are only one of the many reasons to take a zero risk stand on. My perception as someone who grew up around 10 - 15 minutes drive away from the naval base where these ships/boats would dock is probably a little different from that of whyBish . . . I'll have a crack at outlining some of the reasoning why allowing nuclear powered vessels here was a bad idea.

First the facts: The Devonport Naval Base is basically right next to a residential area on Auckland's North Shore. Auckland itself happens to hold 26% of the entire country's population (it was a smaller percentage back then) ie the economic hub of the country. Auckland is also known as "The City of Sails" in reference to the mass of white triangles one can see out on the water every weekend, which is a fair description although fails to account for a similar number of powered boats. New Zealanders as you know are fiercely anti-nuke :) .

Now putting that mess together, you have a situation where an American vessel (teh world's juiciest targets these days) used to find port in the country's largest metropolis. Personally, that starts looking like a bad idea for a number of reasons. If something were to happen whether it be accidental or something more sinister it could potentially have some very serious implications, depending on the scale of the incident, quite beyond what most people would expect.

Now consider how kiwis feel and the fact that 1 in 4 Aucklanders have a boat of some kind . . . The word "accident" could well be changed to. "an . . . 'accident'" *nudge nudge wink wink*

I've sailed a 7 metre boat in the middle of a spectator fleet as the Round the World race boats came barreling through and let me just say that the idea of bouncing around on a cork in a washing machine springs to mind. From what I recall of the protest fleet the last time an American submarine came into port, those people faced a similar chaotic scene. In fact one man was arrested when he physically assaulted the submarine with his hands. :lol: Ignoring consideration of his mental well-being at the time, I can only assume that the guy was simply expressing rage over the situation. So policing the 'incursion' of the submarine was a nightmare for police as well.

I could go on and on about this stuff, but history is history.

If you thought you were puzzled by your government's stand, take it on faith that I am equally puzzled. The only reasoning that made any kind of sense was something along the the lines of "America cannot protect a nation that it has restricted access to" (which only really begs for more questions). Which is kind of weird considering New Zealand doesn't appear to need any protecting in the current world political climate and the economic spinoff is actually detrimental for both countries. :huh: What's more puzzling is the repeated attempts to get NZ to remove the nuke free policy over the last couple of decades. Only recently have I seen the words "agree to disagree" added to the issue, so maybe at last those attempts will end.

Who knows? :huh: