Foreign Minister Winston Peters delivers serious warning as scrutiny week concludes

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand is ‘”utterly unprepared” and needs to beef up its defence spending or risk losing international respect.

He has also called out France’s role in the riots in New Caledonia last month.

Peters made the comments to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee as Parliament’s inaugural scrutiny week reached its end, with ministers and officials having endured hours of questioning from the Opposition and media about Budget decisions.

Asked if he received comments from other countries’ foreign ministers about New Zealand’s level of defence spending, Peters said: “Yes I do. I get it in first, saying we’ve got to lift our game big time.”

He said it wasn’t about improving relationships with other countries but to “play our part and to gain respect or to regain respect”.

“New Zealand is a highly respected country in many ways, but of late, you know, we’re going through the pre-Second World War experience: utterly unprepared, way out of time, disastrous.

“We’ve got to get ourselves, as [Defence Minister] Judith Collins will tell you better than I, back in the business. It’s not because we are warlike, bellicose, or want to be confronting anyone.”

He told the committee New Zealand was helping New Caledonia financially via the Pacific Islands Forum.

Violent riots broke out in Noumea in May after the French Parliament looked to give voting rights to residents who had moved there since 1998, provided they had lived there for 10 years. The indigenous people of New Caledonia, the Kanaks, saw this as an attack on their rights.

Peters said moves were under way to establish dialogue between New Caledonia and a leadership group of past, present and future chairs of the Pacific Islands Forum.

“As we’ve been doing this, we’ve been watching with great care what’s being said out of France,” Peters said.

“At least [French President Emmanuel] Macron has decided that he pulled back from a process which – without me making much of a comment – clearly had these defects because of the absence of the Kanak in that last referendum.

“It was not an outcome upon which anybody could rely.”

He said it was important that the Kanaks’ right to “self-destination” was not dishonoured.

“And that it can happen in a peaceful way. That would be our role. Any other pathway, for us, would be against our own background and our own history. Having said that, you know, I would say to some countries, sometimes what you wish for is not quite the best... If you could get independence and yet have France as your friend, you’re in a far better situation than the converse.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters outlined New Zealand's role in the events in New Caledonia. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Climate Change Minister: NZ in critical decade of delivery

Meanwhile, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts told Parliament’s Environment select committee on Thursday the coalition Government’s spending cuts in Budget 2024 would not make a material difference to the country’s emissions.

Watts told the committee climate change was one of our biggest challenges and New Zealand was in a “critical” decade for delivery. He referred to analysis which he said showed the net effect of “what had been stopped and what had been started” would not be significant.

Watts said funding was yet to be allocated for the new Pastoral Sector Group, announced earlier this month at the same time as the climate change initiative He Waka Eke Noa was disbanded. Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick described this as “a really big deal”.

The coalition Government also announced it had stopped agriculture from being included in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), saying it was still committed to meeting its climate change obligations “without shutting down Kiwi farms”.

“The Government in this Budget decided to cut the independent Climate Change Commission’s capacity to do work on agricultural emissions pricing,” Swarbrick said.

“They justified that on the basis that they would be starting their own working group, which was apparently independent and expert but far less independent on anyone’s analysis [in] that it doesn’t sit within the legislative requirements for independence and expertise as outlined in the Climate Change Response Act.”

“Incredibly mean” community funding cuts

Labour MP Rachel Brooking has described funding cuts for community environmental programmes as “incredibly mean and dramatic”, while the minister in charge says the groups should rely more on their own membership funding streams.

Budget 2024, released last month, stopped funding for the Community Environment Fund, the Environmental Legal Assistance Fund and Indigenous Biodiversity implementation funding.

During Parliament’s Environment select committee on Thursday, Brooking asked Minister for the Environment Penny Simmonds if cutting funding for the programmes seemed “incredibly mean and dramatic” for those organisations, and asked what the outcomes could be.

Minister for the Environment Penny Simmond defended the funding cuts. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Simmonds defended the cuts, saying most of this funding was going to groups that could access funding from their members.

“I looked across a range of areas to see where we could make savings.

“There is an acknowledgment the reduction in funding for a number of community groups... will require them to look more closely at their operations.”

Simmonds told the committee she had not sought any advice before making the cuts.

The Community Environment Fund is for community-driven environment projects. Previously funded projects included cleaning up the Whangamaire stream, which flows into the Waikato River, and a waste repurposing initiative in Nelson.

The Environmental Legal Assistance Fund provides not-for-profit groups with funding to advocate for environmental issues of public interest.

Speaking generally, Simmonds said there was an expectation from the public that the Government would make the “difficult decisions” around funding – as families were doing themselves with their own budgets.

“Nobody is going to be volunteering to be rushing up to have their funding cut,” she said, adding that “priority” programmes would continue.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster and Police Minister Mark Mitchell during their appearance before the Justice select committee. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Replacement of police for non-violent family harm call-outs still unclear

The Government is not yet clear on who or which organisations will attend non-violent emergency call-outs concerning family harm and mental health, as the police move away from such events.

However, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster is stressing his officers will still attend any event where there is a risk of violence.

Following direction from new Police Minister Mark Mitchell to increase focus on public policing, Coster determined police would step back from call-outs that were taking up extensive police time, which included officers spending hours in hospital before patients struggling with mental health issues were seen.

Official documents obtained by the Labour Party showed police viewed the current approach as “unsustainable” and did not allow the police to fulfill its core responsibilities.

Mitchell told the Justice select committee the “all-of-Government” work to address the police’s shift in focus was still ongoing. He acknowledged the importance of having a workforce to replace the police but couldn’t detail what it would look like.

Coster explained that the police had good relationships with other agencies and social organisations, through which people needing assistance were supported when police were not the right entity to respond.

However, he wasn’t able to say whether those organisations were sufficiently resourced to manage the events historically taken care of by the police.

“I think that’s something that we’re going to have to continue to monitor as we implement this triage approach, but right now, we have good relationships in place in communities and there are support services that respond to families in need.”

Police Minister Mark Mitchell is supportive of a public-facing police base in central Auckland. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The level of crime in Auckland’s CBD also came under scrutiny, in light of high-profile crimes occurring in recent weeks.

Mitchell, who claimed there had been “good progress” made on making the CBD safer, said he supported installing a public-facing patrol base in the CBD but said there wasn’t sufficient funding to erect one.

He referenced discussions between police and local business associations about a possible partnership on a base development project. Mitchell added there had been a 60% increase in the frequency of police foot patrols, but accepted residents would prefer a more permanent presence in the area.

Govt MPs take wheel on transport scrutiny

The decision to introduce scrutiny weeks at Parliament was in part designed to afford the Opposition more opportunities to probe the Government’s actions.

However, questions during the appearance of NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) officials were largely dominated by Government MPs, who were particularly motivated to interrogate the agency about its approach to tolling and road cone use.

National Bay of Plenty MP Tom Rutherford, alongside Act’s Tauranga-based list MP Cameron Luxton, sought answers from officials on why their region hosted two of the country’s three toll roads.

National’s Northland MP Grant McCallum took a similar interest, given the third toll road was travelled by those heading north from Auckland and the impact of the closure of the road through the Brynderwyns, which led to Whangārei.

Rutherford, who hasn’t been shy in asking questions throughout the week’s select committees, asked why the Tauranga Eastern Link was tolled and Wellington’s Transmission Gully wasn’t.

Former National leader Simon Bridges, who became the NZTA chairman in March, was honest in his response, saying it was partly due to “political appetite” and noted how Tauranga residents wouldn’t feel singled out for long given the current Government’s preference to toll large-scale roading projects.

Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter was quick to clarify with officials that NZTA didn’t recommend Transmission Gully be tolled when the project was first proposed.