Heather du Plessis-Allan: Hegseth's comments shouldn't upset New Zealand

I don't think anyone should be offended by Pete Hegseth saying that New Zealand is freeloading off the American military.

This is not a controversial thing at all to say. The Australians have been privately complaining about us sponging off them for decades – they've urged us to lift our spend to 2% of GDP for decades.

Professor Alexander Gillespie: Anzac then and now: as trans‑Tasman defence relations get closer, NZ must be on guard

Anzac Day 2026 arrives in tumultuous times: unresolved conflict in the Middle East, the erosion of the old international order, the famous Doomsday Clock set closer to midnight than ever before.

Without doubt, this brings New Zealand’s defence relationship with its closest neighbour (and only formal ally) Australia into sharp focus.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 10/5/24

No, the govt will not be cutting back on every budget – and the Defence vote is among those to be given a funding boost

Reporting on defence spending late last year, RNZ said the coalition government will have to make some tough calls this term to help the force address staff shortages and ageing infrastructure.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 6/12/23

For the record, the Beehive buzz can now be regarded as “official”

The biggest buzz we bring you from the Beehive today is that the government’s official website is up and going after being out of action for more than a week.

The latest press statement came from Education Minister Eric Stanford, who seized on the 2022 PISA results to express her confidence that Kiwi kids will do much better under the Coalition Government.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 5/12/23

Defence ministerial meeting meant Collins missed the Maori Party’s mischief-making capers in Parliament

Maybe this is not the best time for our Minister of Defence to have gone overseas.

Not when the Maori Party is inviting (or should that be inciting?) its followers to join a revolution in a post which promoted its protest plans with a picture of a pair of pistols.

Alexander Gillespie: Foreign policy has been missing from NZ’s election campaign

Tax cuts, crime, the cost of living, potholes and co-governance … these and various other issues are now familiar to most voters. But there has been one major election area missing the serious debate it needs: foreign policy.

Whichever parties form the next government, and whoever becomes prime minister, they will also be charged with negotiating New Zealand’s place in a dynamic and changing world.

Adrian Beaumont: Foreign policy has been missing from NZ’s election campaign

Tax cuts, crime, the cost of living, potholes and co-governance … these and various other issues are now familiar to most voters. But there has been one major election area missing the serious debate it needs: foreign policy.

Whichever parties form the next government, and whoever becomes prime minister, they will also be charged with negotiating New Zealand’s place in a dynamic and changing world.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 20/9/23

Better-than-expected BoP figures give Robertson something to bray about – but revisions helped, and the deficit is still troubling

The latest balance of payments statistics – providing a broad measure of what the country earns and spends internationally – gave grist to Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s publicity mill today.

The current account deficit narrowed to 7.5 per cent of GDP in the June year compared with 8.2 per cent of GDP in March.

Robert G Patman: The defence dilemma facing NZ’s next government

Stay independent or join ‘pillar 2’ of AUKUS?

Strategy, as the great military thinker Carl von Clausewitz once observed, is the process of effectively applying means to achieve clearly defined ends. But good strategy in global politics has proved easier said than done.

The post-Cold War era is replete with examples of poor strategy, be it the US invasion of Iraq, China’s claim to 90% of the South China Sea, or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

So does the formation of AUKUS – the tripartite security partnership established by the US, UK and Australia in 2021 – offer the prospect of a coherent strategy in the Indo-Pacific region?

John Moremon: The ‘Number 8 Wire’ Days for NZ’s Defence Force Are Over

New priorities will demand bigger budgets

New Zealanders have been put on notice that defence and security are among the bigger challenges the country faces this century.

The assessment earlier this year by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Navigating a Shifting World-Te whakatere i tetahi ao hurihuri, warned “the future looks grim” geopolitically. The release last week of a new national security strategy and defence policy strategy statement underscored the urgency of the required response.

Alexander Gillespie: Out of the shadows

Why making NZ’s security threat assessment public for the first time is the right move

Today’s release of the threat assessment by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) is the final piece in a defence and security puzzle that marks a genuine shift towards more open and public discussion of these crucial policy areas.

Alexander Gillespie: NZ’s first national security strategy signals a ‘turning point’ and the end of old certainties

When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz proclaimed a “Zeitenwende”, or historical turning point. It resulted in Germany’s first ever official national security strategy.

The equivalent wake-up call in New Zealand was the 2019 Christchurch terror attack. This hammered home, in the most horrific way, that geographic distance and small size no longer protected the country in ways they might have once.

John Moremon: Cutting-edge new aircraft have increased NZ’s surveillance capacity

But are they enough in a changing world?

New Zealand’s national security was strengthened this month when the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s newest Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft became operational.

A cutting-edge maritime surveillance aircraft, the P-8A is also operated by Australia, India, Norway, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. It is now the New Zealand Airborne Surveillance and Response Force’s primary asset.

The NZ$2.436 billion order of four P-8As allowed the retirement of six ageing turbo-prop P-3K Orions. The P-8A’s cruising speed of 470 knots (903km per hour) is 40% better than the P-3K’s, and its 1,200 nautical mile (2,222km) range nearly double.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 19/7/23

New law strikes at snake oil peddling, but rongoā healers will be spared because regulators can’t define what they do

The Government claims to be delivering certainty to displaced homeowners affected by the recent North Island extreme weather events, providing an interim payment to support them when their insurance payments for temporary accommodation run out.

But certainty for taxpayers is missing from the press statement from the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Carmel Sepuloni. It contains not one figure with a dollar sign. which means the sum being budgeted by the government for this initiative is a mystery.

Point of Order: Defence Minister doesn’t mention US or China at international summit....

....and Singapore newspaper doesn’t mention him

Defence Minister Andrew Little, addressing big-wigs from around the world in Singapore, was oh-so-diplomatically disinclined to identify some countries as goodies or baddies in his government’s defence thinking.

In his Speech To The IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2023, he did say New Zealand’s most recent defence assessment identified climate change and “geostrategic competition” as the two greatest security challenges to our place in the South Pacific.

Point of Order: Mātauranga Māori will propel Pāpāmoa school kids’ science learning (in te reo)

Two ministerial press statements today draw attention to the Government’s incorporation of mātauranga Māori in its science policies and programmes.

One of these announced the launch of the national space policy, which will oblige our space boffins to bring indigenous knowledge into their considerations.

The national policy document tells us:

Point of Order: Govt is open about NZ’s science relationship with China....

.....but a ministerial statement on defence relationship is hard to find

The Government is coy about some aspects of its relationship with China – and with the United States.

Earlier this month, the PM spent a hectic 23 hours in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, where he responded to the superpower security deal just struck between the United States and PNG by saying New Zealand did not support the “militarisation of the Pacific”.

He also said “having a military presence doesn’t necessarily signify militarisation”.

Foreign Affairs analyst Geoffrey Miller commented:

Point of Order: Past Budget spending shows up as Bushmasters arrive.....

......and govt will hope to make a bang with $8m for Māori tourism

Budget 2023 continues to provide grist for the mills of ministerial spin doctors charged with drawing favourable attention to the government’s largesse.

Goodies generated by Defence appropriations in budgets past are winning headlines today, too. Defence Minister Andrew Little has been enthusing about the arrival of the first 18 Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles for the New Zealand Army.

Point of Order: Ministers tackle various issues overseas....

.....while Kiri Allan extends the Human Rights Act to combat religious bigots in NZ

Two ministers are overseas, combating climate change (in the case of James Shaw) and Russian invaders (in the case of Defence Minister Peeni Henare).

Another minister is bound for Paris, to combat mental ill-health among other things, according to his press statement.

And back home, Justice Minister Kiri Allan is combating religious discrimination.

Point of Order: Govt cheerleaders whoop the good news (at last) of resource management reform

.......but keep an eye on the Treaty’s role

It was rather like listening to ministers crowing about the goodies being distributed to programmes within their portfolios before, on and after Budget Day.

It was the joyous response from a gaggle of cheerleading ministers to the unveiling of legislation to replace the wretched Resource Management Act.

Environment Minister David Parker made the key announcement and summed up its features under these bullet points: