Clearly, AUKUS is coming up in the discussions that he and Judith Collins are having with their counterparts over in Australia today.
Now he was on Sky News this morning, and the host pointed out that Jacinda Ardern didn’t seem to love the idea of AUKUS, given that she reaffirmed NZ's ban on nuclear powered vessels and that that would definitely apply to the Aussie subs.
And then the host asked Winston if he had a problem with them as well.
And Winston said- "Well I don't know why you’re quoting the previous Prime Minister who gave up after all... but on these issues, the then-Prime Minister displayed an enormous lack of understanding or lack of clarity."
Shots fired!
But listen to what he’s saying, he disagrees with Jacinda and he sounds keen on AUKUS. And actually the more I read about it, the more I think I agree with him.
Anyone who believes there is no reason for us to join an alliance like AUKUS needs to stop being naïve about what's happening in the world.
If the risk of war was a temperature setting on an oven, the dial has been moved up quite a lot in just the last few weeks.
Governments across Europe are warning of war. The Germans, the Swedes- the UK head of army spoke about maybe needing conscription, for goodness sake.
Maybe they’re being alarmist for their own ends, but maybe they’re right. There are after all two significant wars going on at the moment in the Ukraine and the Middle East that could spiral with one ill-considered action.
Never mind the considerable build up of Chinese warships and planes near Taiwan just in the last few days.
There's a debate about whether AUKUS even wants us- maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves asking to be included. But if they do want us, I think we should want them too.
We need to get real about how worried Governments are about the world’s temperature right now.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.
3 comments:
So here’s the rub. NZ wants to become a member of AUKUS but also wants to thumb its nose at the alliance due to nuclear subs and we’re all about being anti nuclear in NZ. A fantastic insightful position, I might add ,
being made in total ignorance of the benefits of Nuclear power, which people are now only coming to understand. Anyway back to the point in hand, nuclear subs in our waters. Nuclear subs run silent in the bottom of the ocean, untraceable, hence the reason why they are so effective. NZ has no Navy, Air Force or Army worth mentioning. If a sub just happened to arrive in Auckland harbour or the Marlborough Sounds who would know?
NZ’s posture on anti nuclear subs is as outdated the water infrastructure in Wellington.
The alternative is we stay out of AUKUS and resort to wishful thinking as a defence strategy.
No matter what might happen in an increasingly doubtful future, no-one is coming to save us. We will have to save ourselves.
Well, the Doomsday Clock has never been closer (90 seconds) to midnight.
I'm against nuclear warfare, especially ordnance, but fully appreciate nuclear energy will be our saviour and if it must be, our protector. After all, without the sun (the biggest nuclear reactor in our immediate universe), we wouldn't exist.
Given the parlous state of our defence forces, those willing to include us and have a similar (free) world view (which isn't Marxist oriented) ought to be embraced, and we should be very grateful for the opportunity to be part of it.
Only the ignorant, and fools, would think differently, but I do appreciate our biggest market could also be our biggest enemy, and a fine line must be walked.
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