New Zealand moves to shift its status as a defence freeloader - Fran O’Sullivan

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION

Winston Peters and Judith Collins have taken a major step to expunge New Zealand’s reputation as a defence “freeloader” as far as Australia is concerned.

Following bilateral talks in Melbourne this week – between Defence Minister Collins, Foreign Affairs Minister Peters, Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Australia Defence Minister Richard Marles – Australia will this year send officials to New Zealand to brief the Government on the developments for pillar two of Aukus.

That’s the upshot of the inaugural Australia New Zealand Ministerial consultations (ANZMIN) in Melbourne – informally dubbed a “2+2″ meeting between the two countries defence and foreign ministers, following on from the first “2+2″ meeting last year between the respective Australasian finance and climate ministers.

In effect, New Zealand is openly rejoining “the club”.

The major political difficulty as far as New Zealand ministers are concerned, will be balancing the demands and responsibilities of a “partnership” framework with Australia with the challenge of upholding New Zealand’s vaunted and prized foreign policy independence. In other words, not being seen as a mere poodle to Australia and ultimately, the United States.

To balance that potential – which is already being talked about by foreign affairs academic commentators, the two Cabinet ministers and their advisers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Defence may have to share much more information on a regular basis on regional security issues and outline more openly the jeopardy New Zealand may face if it does not step up.

For far too long, politicians have fenced around on just what strategic threats New Zealand faces.

In Melbourne, the four ministers vowed to create two “seamless militaries” that will co-operate more closely as New Zealand moves towards being included in part of the Aukus trilateral security partnership between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

This makes sense given the parlous nature of New Zealand’s run-down defence establishment.

To be clear, New Zealand will not be involved in Aukus pillar one, which will result in a small fleet of new nuclear-powered submarine class built in the UK and Australia to be called the SSN-Aukus, also known as the SSN-A.

This comes with a hefty price tag.

A 2023 Lowy Institute Poll showed only a quarter of Australians thought Aukus justified the price tag of up to A$368 billion ($394b). Like New Zealand, Australia is grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and the impact of competing spending demands, including Covid-debt repayments, may steadily undermine the value-for-money justification for Aukus.

New Zealand does have some coin to play with.

Collins talked up the potential for New Zealand’s fast-developing space and technology sectors to make a contribution to pillar two of Aukus, which is focused on military technology.

In other words, New Zealand could make a contribution and not just be a passive receiver of technology from the alliance partners.

Winston Peters and Judith Collins arriving in Melbourne for bilateral talks. Photo / Thomas Coughlan

From Australia’s perspective, Marles indicated Australia, the UK and the US need to get runs on the board first, but in the longer term, they were “open to the idea of pillar two being open to other countries who may be interested”.

Canada and New Zealand are certainly interested. Japan and South Korea have also flagged interest.

It’s no secret Australia has long wanted New Zealand to step up and shoulder a more significant slice of the regional defence burden.

Successive prime ministers and their diplomatic representatives have cajoled New Zealand on this score - and also our relationship with China.

But the frustrations are wider.

During an informal lunch session, ministers were said to be openly exasperated at the cacophony of interventions by the “formers”.

Former prime ministers like Labour’s Helen Clark, who has railed against the Luxon Government’s support for the United States’ missile strikes in Yemen and has denigrated as an “orchestrated campaign” the move to join pillar two. And Labor’s Paul Keating, who has savaged the $A368b nuclear submarine plan as the “worst deal in all history”, blasting defence and foreign affairs ministers Marles and Wong as “seriously unwise”.

Similar frustrations spilled over at a press conference for travelling New Zealand media, where Collins and Peters took issue with their Labour predecessors’ recent apparent about turn on Aukus.

They have a point.

As long ago as October 2021, Dame Annette King, then our top diplomat in Canberra, told the Sydney Morning Herald that while New Zealand would never be involved in the development of nuclear-powered submarines, it welcomed the increased engagement of the US and Britain in the Indo-Pacific region through Aukus.

King flagged that New Zealand could join the agreement to collaborate on the development of emerging cyber technologies, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing, but it would need to see the detail first.

King, a political appointee of the prior Labour-New Zealand First coalition, stepped down as High Commissioner one day after Chris Luxon’s first visit to Australia for a joint prime ministerial meeting with Antony Albanese as her five-year appointment came to an end.

In March 2023, then Defence Minister Andrew Little confirmed the Labour Government was discussing joining the non-nuclear part of the Aukus alliance. “We have been offered the opportunity to talk about whether we could or wish to participate in that pillar two ... I’ve indicated we will be willing to explore it.”

Recent comments by Labour’s new foreign affairs spokesman David Parker suggest the party could close that door ahead of any real exploration.

If so, that would have a major impact on the bipartisan approach New Zealand has long taken to foreign affairs.