Helen Clark is sticking her oar into foreign policy debates of late, piping up to tut-tut over the new Government’s tilt towards our more traditional allies like the USA, Australia, the UK and Canada. Both she and Key would prefer to see us continually sucking up to China.
Now Clark is railing against AUKUS, and in particular wailing about something we can neither afford nor are involved in, new nuclear submarines…but what it is really about is trying to hobble us with our traditional allies.
Now Clark is railing against AUKUS, and in particular wailing about something we can neither afford nor are involved in, new nuclear submarines…but what it is really about is trying to hobble us with our traditional allies.
Political figures from Australia and the Pacific have given stark warnings against joining Aukus, suggesting the security pact will have serious consequences for New Zealand’s independent foreign policy and potentially leave nuclear waste in the region.
The Labour Party on Thursday convened a symposium where political leaders – including former Prime Minister Helen Clark and Australia’s former foreign minister Bob Carr, and Tuvalu’s former prime minister Enele Sopoaga – cautioned against joining as an associate of the Aukus security pact, an agreement between the US and Britain to give Australia nuclear-powered submarines and share technology.
The trilateral agreement is widely perceived as a way to counterbalance China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific, a vast biographic region stretching from the Pacific coastline to the Indian Ocean and comprising nearly half the world’s people.
Stuff
Helen Clark’s knowledge of foreign affairs was exposed when she infamously declared in 2001 that we live in an “incredibly benign strategic environment”. Of course, she then went on to involve us in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with Timor Leste, as well as being bellicose towards Fiji for the duration of her prime ministership.
Clark has never recanted that view. For her, looking at the world through her commie red-tinted glasses, the great evils in the world are not an expansionist Russia, the exported evil of Iran and its numerous terror proxies, or the rise of Chinese hegemony through economic and military expansion. No, for Helen Clark the biggest enemy she sees is in the form of our closest allies, those with a shared history as liberal democracies. Thus she reveals that she is a fan of totalitarianism; theocracies pushing a violent, murderous and horrific ideology and a distinct lack of democracy.
Of course, Helen Clark neglects to mention her role in cabinet under the Lange/Palmer/Moore Labour Government who purchased two ANZAC class frigates. Those frigates are now clapped out and in port more often than they are at sea. Those frigates need replacing, and it won’t be Chinese frigates that we will be looking for. Our best bet is to avail ourselves of the new British Inspiration class frigate on favourable terms.
She loftily complains about our reputation of having an “independent foreign policy” which is a linguistic construct that only truly came into use during her prime ministership. What she is protecting is not our “independent foreign policy”; rather, she is seeking to protect her own self-written legacy.
Winston Peters will likely be bristling at Clark’s rather rude claims and is likely preparing to smack her soundly on the nose with a metaphorical rolled-up newspaper (if he can still find one) like the naughty puppy she really is.
Winston Peters also knows the value of closely aligning our defence policy with our foreign policy, and how defence can and does support our foreign policy. He will be sure to point that out to people like Helen Clark, who is the person most responsible for the degradation of our armed forces.
As for the rest of us, we just wish she’d be as silent as Muldoon is right now.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
Most Kiwis prefer their past Prime Ministers and MP's to either be dead or silent.
Exactly. They should be ashamed of the damage they have done or have allowed to be done to our country. Traitors one and all.
Steven Joyce has a lot to say too. Made be he should run for parliament?
Anyone who can suss maori as adequately as Clark does cannot have entirely faulty judgement.
Under Clark, the NZ Air Force lost its entire fighting ability with all combat aircraft sold or decommissioned.
It's now relegated to search and rescue duties, fishery patrols, and flying PMs around the world.
Thanks Helen , what great decisions.
Robert - this is the Helen conundrum. In general I disagreed with most of her policies. However, when it came to having a backbone and ruling Kiwi ahead of iwi she was the best in a long time. For this attempt I will always cut her slack. John Key, bowing to Iwi over Kiwi just to stay in power, will never get any credit from me.
I agree with CXH, and Cam I think your allegations against Helen Clark are over the top. She made a wise and principled decision that we stay out of the invasion of Iraq, which after all was based on false "evidence" that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons.
It is ridiculous to label Clark as communistic in leanings. Her administration upheld core market institutions and economic policy settings and upheld the rule of law internationally. And don't forget the heavy lifting of Jim Sutton and many other Labour and National Ministers to get a free trade agreement with China.
@MPHW perhaps you should check out the Epoch Times series Counterpunch with Trevor Loudon, who does a great job at exposing the Communist ties and beliefs for former and current Labor party MPs. Helen Clark features in quite a few episodes.
Poor old Helen is still bitter and twisted that she didn't get the top job at the UN. One glass ceiling she couldn't break, to use her own words.
More likely she just wasn't good enough, but she would never admit that would she? Nor would she admit that the lesser jobs at the UN are passed around like a game of pass the parcel . Every litle country gets a turn once in a while. And NZ got its turn when Helen happened to be there.
To get the big jobs you might need a bit more gravitas and substance than she had. Maybe something a bit more than having been a junior lecturer [at best] in sociology. Or perhaps some substantial experience in the commercial world. Or perhaps some life out of party politics and off the government payroll. Something more than being the PM of NZ.
No she was never going to get the top job with just that in her CV. And certainly not coming from this little antipodean outpost. And certainly not being a white middle class woman from a western democracy. Just ask the muslim world,the communist world, Africa, South America. As Helen would say, that's real politik. She just didn't have the ability to overcome such substantial biases as most others do that get to the top.
I note that on the popular game show "The Chase" at the height of Arderns popularity a competitor was asked who is the PM of NZ. Julia Gillard came the answer !
New Zealanders just dont realise that much of the world couldn't place NZ on a map. No more than we could place dozens of countries on a map that are not much bigger than us but have far greater GDP's. And heaven forbid some of them are Black !
And none of them would give a hoot for Helen's opinion on foreign policy. And neither should we.
At the next election their will be people voting that weren't born when Helen was last in office. Enough is enough Helen just go away !
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