Ruckus over AUKUS – Labour demands Peters step down as Foreign Minister, but he still had the job this afternoon
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs.
The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised former Australian MP Bob Carr’s views on the security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
What he said about Carr triggered demands from the Labour Party that Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic.
And what did Peters actually say?
RNZ has removed any potentially litigious comments from online reports after Carr, who was Australia’s foreign minister from 2012 to 2013, said he considered the remarks to be “entirely defamatory” and would commence legal action.
Peters’ speech, on the other hand, can be found on the government’s official website along with news from ministerial colleagues who are ….
And what did Peters actually say?
RNZ has removed any potentially litigious comments from online reports after Carr, who was Australia’s foreign minister from 2012 to 2013, said he considered the remarks to be “entirely defamatory” and would commence legal action.
Peters’ speech, on the other hand, can be found on the government’s official website along with news from ministerial colleagues who are ….
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- 1. Return the Children and Young People’s Commission back to a single Commissioner, moving away from the current five-member board structure.
- 2. Change the Independent Children’s Monitor from a departmental agency hosted within the Education Review Office to an Independent Crown Entity.
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- Easing the pathway through the Auckland airport security system. From May 1, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport may keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology.
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Speech
Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs.
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology.
There are more than 4000 words in the Peters speech.
Point of Order has focused on the portion headed…
AUKUS Pillar 2 and the nature of New Zealand foreign policy
We now turn to the confused public debate around AUKUS Pillar 2.
There has been much said about New Zealand’s possible involvement, so let’s begin by laying out some basic facts.
Discussions amongst officials began in September 2021 and the first advice from officials to Ministers about the potential for New Zealand to associate with AUKUS began in October 2021.
In 2023, after almost two years of careful consideration, Labour’s Prime Minister, in concert with his Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence, sanctioned officials to begin discussions with AUKUS partners about Pillar 2’s scope and architecture.
Exploratory, information-gathering discussions in Canberra, London, and Washington did not spontaneously occur.
Officials were mandated to conduct them by the Labour Government. That choice was consistent with former Prime Minister Hipkins’ statement last year that, “Our region is now a strategic theatre.”
It was also consistent with New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation, which all of our significant political parties continue to support.
So, let’s be clear. Pillar 2 discussions were initiated by Labour, before the current Coalition Government was voted into office. That is why we state we are continuing a process already begun by our predecessor Labour Government.
Second, there is one crucial precondition and one consequential decision required before New Zealand could or would participate in Pillar 2.
The precondition is that AUKUS partners need to want us to participate in Pillar 2 and invite us to do so.
That precondition has not yet been met, which is why we are exploring with our traditional partners the scope of Pillar 2 and seeking a much more detailed understanding of what this involves.
Indeed, it is not yet fully clear to us what criteria AUKUS partners will use when considering the participation of new countries in Pillar 2.
This government, like its predecessor, has its Ministers and officials seeking information and in discussions with their counterparts so that we can better understand what opportunities and benefits Pillar 2’s advanced technologies may offer New Zealand.
We must also carefully examine what utilities, if any, we might offer, or be expected to offer Pillar 2 partners, in return. That will take time.
The consequential decision, if the precondition of being invited to participate in Pillar 2 is met sometime in the future, is New Zealand would then need to want to do so.
At that future point we will need to carefully weigh up the economic and security benefits and costs of any decision about whether participating in Pillar 2 is in the national interest.
The Government is a long way from this point of being able to make such a decision.
But we should emphasise that it would be utterly irresponsible for any government of any stripe to not consider whether collaborating with like-minded partners on advances in technology is in our national interest.
We have equities with our one formal ally Australia that means we need to understand what the Pillar 2 architecture means for our closest defence and indeed diplomatic relationship.
For instance, if Australia adopts new advanced technologies what does that mean for New Zealand’s ability to communicate with our ally’s capabilities?
It would be irresponsible for us not to consider whether the $3.5 billion of taxpayer money spent, which former Minister of Defence Ron Mark and we secured in 2018, to purchase four P-8A Poseidon aircraft and replace our antiquated Hercules fleet with five new Hercules aircraft, will still be fit for purpose under Pillar 2’s technology advances.
Prudence also dictates exploring technological advancement to assess its potential significant benefits for our economy, military and space sectors, and how these benefits might then flow into wider society.
Peters said bipartisanship in foreign policy is essential for our small state, to keep New Zealanders secure and prosperous.
He emphasised:
Pillar 2 is not a military alliance but a technology sharing mechanism being developed by three of our closest traditional security partners. It is being developed as a response to a deteriorating strategic environment. It seeks to strengthen defence capabilities, deter coercion or aggression in our region, and support security and stability.
And let’s also be clear about which governments comprise Pillar 2: three of our closest friends on the international stage. Indeed, Pillar 1 partners comprise a US Government led by Democrat Joe Biden, a Labour-led Australian Government, and a Conservative Government in the United Kingdom, supported by the Labour opposition. These are the countries that opponents of Pillar 2 are scaremongering about.
Peters said critics who reject Pillar 2 claim the government is abandoning an independent foreign policy.
Their conception of our independent foreign policy has always carried a strand of anti-Americanism, so being independent means for them saying no to the United States…
But they ignore, consciously or otherwise, the fact that we now exist in a qualitatively new and different economic and security environment from years past.
We also say that if independence for our country’s foreign policy means sometimes disagreeing with our traditional and like-minded partners, but somehow does not involve also being at liberty to agree with them at times to pursue shared and mutual interests, then the term independence is utterly meaningless.
New Zealand’s independent foreign policy had never meant we are a non-aligned nation, Peters said.
We have always had our foreign policy alignments. We picked sides in the two world wars of the 20th Century. We have a military alliance with Australia.
We have an intelligence partnership with four other Western, English-speaking countries. We have defence arrangements with a number of South East Asian partners. We build coalitions of interest across any number of issues. For New Zealand, to be independent is not to be neutral or non-aligned.
Independence is about having the agency to freely make decisions, in any direction, consistent with well-considered, prudent assessments of New Zealand’s vital national interests.
But Peters agreed with critics of our foreign policy that there has been a dramatic shift since the change of government.
We’ve shifted from drift to re-engagement.
From inertia to action.
From lethargy to energy.
And from incoherence to coherence.
We take the world as it is, and this realism is a shift from our predecessors’ vaguer notions of an indigenous foreign policy that no-one else understood, let alone shared.
The threats New Zealand face, outlined this evening, are incredibly challenging. But the government sees opportunity too, and we will continue to pursue each of them with vigour.
However, we are steadfast in our belief that New Zealand’s voice matters, that within the community of nations we stand as equals, and that more than ever, diplomacy matters.
Peters today told Morning Report all he was doing was continuing work started by the previous government to consider Pillar 2.
Labour maintains that the government’s language around Pillar 2 has changed from neutral to pro.
That’s partly due to Peters joint statement with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month which said:
“We share the view that arrangements such as the Quad, AUKUS, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity contribute to peace, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and see powerful reasons for New Zealand engaging practically with them, as and when all parties deem it appropriate”.
Peters said he personally included the end of the sentence “when all parties deem it appropriate”.
“That’s what I wanted to be sure, that first of all we knew what we were talking about, we had a discussion in the political system of this country, told the people of this country, after we had been even first of all invited.
“That’s the fact of this matter, you’ve got a whole lot of people way ahead of themselves, making ridiculous comments, they’ve never been part of any briefing on this matter.”
In the interview on RNZ’s Morning Report Peters also criticised the former Australian MP Bob Carr’s views on the security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Some of his remarks about Carr have been removed from RNZ reports.
But an hour or so later the Labour Party was demanding Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic.
Peters had not been stood down by Question Time in Parliament this afternoon, when he was answering MPs’ questions about AUKUS.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
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