Police, Greenpeace clash over protest yacht's course

Inflatables carrying activists in front of the oil survey ship Orient Explorer.

Police say they won't get into a public debate over claims they mistakenly ordered a protest yacht to change course off the East Cape yesterday and head into danger.

Greenpeace, local iwi and others have been protesting off the East Cape where the Petrobras survey ship, Orient Explorer, is doing seismic surveys of the Raukumara Basin, looking for oil under a five-year licence issued by the Government.

In a statement from Greenpeace, Dave Armstrong, the skipper of the protest vessel Secret Affair said he had left Hicks Bay and was trying to get back to Auckland as quickly as possible when police on the navy's inshore patrol vessel, HMNZS Taupo, ordered him to make a 90-degree turn.

The new course would have taken Armstrong into the arrays towed behind Orient Explorer, Greenpeace said. He said police panicked when they realised their mistake and issued another course change.

Yesterday police said protest yachts ignored radio messages from the shipper of the Orient Explorer that they were heading into danger and when the yachts did not change course, an inflatable boat was launched from Taupo to instruct the yachts their predicament.

Today police said they would not respond to Greenpeace's claim that police had "panicked" when they ordered the yacht to change course.

A police spokesman said police were on the navy ship and in the area to ensure safety, the rights of the survey ship and the rights of Greenpeace to carry out their protest.

In the Greenpeace statement Mr Armstrong accused the police of following the Government's strategy and exaggerating safety issues in order to justify their intervention in a legitimate protest action.

He said the Government created safety claims as a pretext for shutting down the flotilla's peaceful protest.

- NZPA