Helen Clark criticises NZ’s independent foreign policy ‘drift’

Thursday, 18 April 2024

Former prime minister Helen Clark says New Zealand’s choreography with the US and the UK on China hacking claims revealed what she described as a concerning “drift” in NZ’s foreign policy independence.

Clark spoke alongside former New South Wales premier Bob Carr and former Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga at a Labour-hosted public discussion at Parliament this morning, examining the Aukus security partnership. Clark and Carr have both been critical, respectively, of NZ and Australia’s involvement.

Aukus is a security pact between Australia, the UK and US described as “a shared commitment to the international rules-based order” in the Indo-Pacific. The partnership has two parts: what’s called Pillar 1 will see Australia receive nuclear powered-submarines from Aukus partners. NZ’s long-standing nuclear-free stance prevents it from joining Pillar 1, but there is speculation the Government is considering joining Pillar 2, the sharing of defence technology, including artificial intelligence, quantum capabilities and cybersecurity.

Observers see this as a shoring up of security amid China’s reach in the Pacific but Clark described it as a “slippery path” that could jeopardise NZ’s trading relationship with China and would have broader economic implications at the same time the Government was making significant public service job cuts.

The Government has so far denied specific plans to join Aukus. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, who was in Washington last week where he met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and deputy secretary Kurt Campbell, a key figure behind the development of the Aukus agreement, says talks have been about information gathering. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has previously said Government was “exploring” what opportunities there would be for New Zealand under the agreement.

Clark, speaking to a packed room at Parliament this morning, said she had observed “a drift in positioning” from the Government. She listed the Government’s unusual move to speak out, alongside the US and the UK, on claims a China-sponsored group hacked New Zealand’s Parliamentary Service and Parliamentary Counsel Office. Clark described the Government’s actions as “gratuitous”, emphasising China as a quality trading partner with which NZ had had a longstanding good relationship with. “[NZ has] no state secrets in a Parliamentary computer. We are an open book.”

She also criticised New Zealand’s backing of the bombardment of Yemen.

“And now, this firming up of the position on Aukus, with the NZ foreign minister and the US secretary of state announcing from Washington DC last week that the two countries see ‘powerful reasons’ for NZ to engage with Aukus, none of which were elaborated. And then the PM reported …last week saying ‘Aukus is very good for our region’. Again, not any specific reason for that given.”

Clark said the Government’s apparent shift raised “huge issues of transparency” as those developments suggested “NZ is taking a very different course” that voters had not been “sensitised” to.

“There is no doubt in my mind that if the drift we see in position continues, we will be positioned in a way we haven’t been for decades, as a fully signed up partner to US strategies in the region. And from that, in my experience, would flow expectations about what is the appropriate level of defence expenditure for NZ, and expectations of NZ contributing more and more to military activities. Aukus is an agreement clearly aimed at China, our major trading partner, and we would find it increasingly hard to speak out of both sides of our mouth.

“What is good about joining a ratcheting up of tensions in our region? Where is the military threat in New Zealand? What does Aukus pillar 2 actually offer New Zealand that it needs for its own defence? Do we really need access to quantum technology for military purposes and offensive cyberweapon capacity and hypersonic weapons?”

A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said that New Zealand was continuing the process commenced under the previous government in exploring involvement in Aukus Pillar 2.

“There is no shift in New Zealand’s approach,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Carr, speaking after Clark, bluntly described Pillar 2 of Aukus as “fragrant methane-wrapped bullshit”, going on to describe a kind of China “hysteria” and “paranoia” from superpowers.

He encouraged New Zealand and Australia to take a 'different approach to the one that says war is inevitable“.

“We should address the appalling prospect of war between these powers. The danger is real, but the danger of it descending into a nuclear exchange is higher than any other conflict in the world,” he said.

“We can have a different model. Australia and NZ are beautifully placed to nurture and defend [the relationship] and promote it diplomatically.”