The new National coalition cares little about defence. Defence is surprisingly a large and under-appreciated strength for Labour.
15,200 New Zealanders of diverse specialisations and skills serve in our military. It is a proudly bicultural institution which sustains this irrespective of political fashion. They are of course not a hive mind of political leaning, but that mass-tonne of voters is a core segment of organised working New Zealand. It ought to be a natural partner with Labour, and indeed with Minister Little they were. They should be again.
What Labour can also do better than National is help us all understand once more how critical our international partnerships really are right now. In part because of the political vacuum in military and international partnership experience we now have with PM Luxon.
New Zealand’s primary military allies are Australia and the United States. Concerning Australia, our 2023 White Paper states:
Australia is New Zealand’s most critical defence and security partner and our only formal ally. Defence will continue to work with Australia across the span of security activities in our region and further afield in ways that leverage our combined strengths”
The United States formal view about New Zealand is set out in this State Department commentary:
In 2012, the signing of the Washington Declaration enhanced the defense relationship between the United States and New Zealand by providing a structure and strategic guidance for security cooperation and defense dialogues. The United States Navy destroyer USS Sampson visited New Zealand in November 2016, the first bilateral ship visit to the country in more than 30 years. The USS Sampson’s visit took on additional significance in the aftermath of the 7.8-magnitude Kaikoura earthquake.”
Similar sentiments are apparent from Congress.
Australia is a key defence partner with the United States. Australia is our only formal defence ally. Pretty simple.
But regrettably Australia doesn’t really view us like that these days. While our everyday interpersonal, economic, sporting and institutional connections between both kinds of citizens build on intensive multi-decade cooperation, from Australia’s view we are drifting. There is a basic under-appreciation of the relationship at a political level.
This was clear when then Prime Minister Scott Morrison phoned Prime Minister Ardern to inform her shortly before the AUKUS security partnership was announced.
The fact that Australia negotiated the initiative largely without the input of one of its only two military allies signalled a failure at the political level to recognise the role and importance of New Zealand to Australia’s defence.
The lack of consultation was particularly notable because the headline element of AUKUS was that Australia would develop nuclear-powered submarines. Labour Prime Minister Ardern had to quickly confirm that any nuclear submarines would not be allowed into New Zealand’s territorial waters, and this was later followed up with Prime Minister Hipkins.
It is already clear that National is by itself incoherent in foreign affairs and has no grasp of defence issues. Judith Collins frankly has too many portfolios to focus.
A bold Labour Party would strike out for a new defence treaty with Australia, one that seriously updates the relationship for the new threat context outlined in the New Zealand white paper 2023 and Australia white paper 2023. It doesn’t have to ask permission from anyone let alone National to do this.
In practicality we have deep and abiding Australasian commitment. We have committed to deep military interoperability with both Australia and the United States.
And there is very good reason in 2023 for depth in partnership and in interoperability when one sets out the real scale of threat. The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has since Vietnam 60 years ago. Never before has it faced four major antagonists who are allied at the same time: Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. All have nuclear arsenals of some form. Russia is at war very close to the NATO border. China continues to heavily threaten the democracy of Taiwan. North Korea is actively pursuing long range missile tech loaded with nuclear weapons. Iran is a deep antagonist to Israel and Saudi Arabia, and the United States is close to getting pulled into outright war in its support of Israel and already is with Ukraine.
Yet frankly the United States political system is in such a mess that it has little energy to retain leadership that its scale of military – and indeed ourselves – have assumed held under since WW2.
Indeed because the United States appears sclerotic and divided, it needs its partners ever more as it faces so many threats at once. Hey Labour: there’s no reason not to say so out loud.
Australia is also sizing up the interrelated nature of threats. The parallel interests of Australia and New Zealand are tightly bound in so many areas when considering our common trade reliance on China while also being a security antagonist, our common addiction to oil while we struggle through the first decades of the global clean-energy transition agenda, and of course our common Pacific partner threats to sea level rise and massive accelerating cyclone damage. Australia isn’t stating this clearly, and New Zealand should.
In this new world characterised by disruption, each solution to a problem is at best an approximation, and each effort to resolve a problem particularly defence problems are likely to affect all other problems. The way to unpack such complexity is to bring more trusted partners deep into your fold with you; each partner brings a new reach of diplomatic power, relationship capacity, and defence specialisation.
The Ardern+Hipkins government though only two terms long, was very strong in Defence investment. It sure took too long, but from July this year the pay of most NZDF personnel including new recruits and skilled lower ranked service people increased between $4,000 and $15,000. This increase was four times greater than any previous defence remuneration boost over the past decade.
Since 2017 the Labour government ploughed $4.5 billion of additional money into NZDF. It has been the biggest funding boost in living memory. If you drive past Ohakea you may get a glimpse of the four flash new Poseidon submarine hunter aircraft in the brand new hangars, or the five new transport planes costing $1.5 billion, or at Linton or Waiouru the roads may roll around you with the 43 new armoured vehicles costing $100m. We needed all of it: the pay rises and the equipment: morale and machinery were falling apart.
Only Labour delivered that. Not National. Labour in government were no doves. Nor were they remotely neutral in stating who their defence partnerships were with.
Absent Ministers Little and Mahuta, PM Ardern, and Ambassador King, this task of strategic partnering falls to Hipkins. He is indeed the leader and can stand clearly to defend our realm better than Luxon. Crisis match-fit also means sovereignty match-fit.
As so many parts of the world crumble, as our partners need us more even if they forget us, as our threats grow closer, it’s time for Labour itself to show New Zealand what fresh, strong, and smart defence alliances for this century ought to be.
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