NZ taxpayers fund submarine dismantling

The Government says it has successfully spent $683,000 of taxpayer cash on dismantling a nuclear submarine in the Russian Far East.

The money went to a Japanese-led programme to scrap "Hull 333", which avoided Russian Navy workers dumping the nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said New Zealand had contributed to a G8 global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction since 2004.

It was launched in 2002 to raise up to $US20 billion ($NZ39 billion) over 10 years to support non-proliferation, disarmament, counter-terrorism and nuclear safety projects in the former Soviet Union.

Since 2004, New Zealand taxpayers have contributed:

* $NZ1.9 million to destroy major stockpiles of Russian chemical weapons in Russia;

* $NZ500,000 to shut down the last plutonium-producing nuclear reactor in Russia, based at Zheleznogorsk; and

* $NZ683,000 to improve detection of smuggled nuclear and radioactive materials at the Russian border.