Rebuke for base visit

Press, 28 January 1986, Page 1

Rebuke for base visit

The Greenpeace Antarctic expedition has been given a sharp Ministerial rap on the knuckles for “dropping in” at Scott Base to pick up mail, without giving 24 hours notice.

Two of the Greenpeace crew, the helicopter pilot, Mr David Walley, and a scientist, Mr Ralph John, flew 70km across ice floes to use the Post Office facilities at the New Zealand base last week.

The enthusiastic welcome they received from base staff came to an abrupt end after about two hours, when a senior official asked them to leave for failing to give the customary notice of intended arrival.

The reprimand came yesterday from the Minister of Science, Mr Tizard, who said Scott Base was not the sort of place where people thinking of visiting could just “drop in.”

The visit had disrupted the tight work schedules at the base and caused serious inconvenience, he said.

“This party, which had been previously advised of the requirement for 24 hours notice, did not give this notice but simply arrived at Scott Base,” Mr Tizard said.

Speaking by telephone from the Greenpeace last evening, the expedition’s co-ordinator, Mr Peter Wilkinson, said: “We notified air traffic control at

McMurdo that we were coming. We were not aware that we had to give 24 hours notice.

“Our people had collected our incoming mail and were half-way through processing our outgoing mail when they were asked to leave.” Mr Wilkinson said Greenpeace had been told that its expedition could use the post office at Scott Base, and they had assumed it would be run as any normal post office.

"The reception we received from the personnel at the base was great, and it’s sad that officialdom had to sour what was a very amicable situation.”

The director of the

D.S.I.R.’s Antarctic Division, Mr Bob Thomson, said: “They can’t expect to just drop into Scott Base and find , everything open. They arrived about 5.50 p.m. after the normal hours the post office is open.”

The base needed to know when people were coming so that preparations could be made to cater for them and so that the impact on scientific work schedules was minimal.