Rainbow Warrior attack ‘helped shape NZ’s independent identity’

French bombing of anti-nuclear ship ‘made a big impression on NZ’s approach to international politics’

The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior at Auckland wharf in 1985 by a team of French intelligence agents was “a loss of innocence” for New Zealand but established the nation’s international reputation for independent political thought, a leading journalism academic has said.

David Robie, director of the Pacific media centre at Auckland University of Technology, spent more than 10 weeks on the Greenpeace vessel as a journalist covering its anti-nuclear protests across the Pacific.