March 21 2022
PM Jacinda Ardern has announced a further $5 million in assistance to Ukraine to help it during the invasion from Russia. Ardern confirmed that Cabinet has signed off on decisions on vaccine mandates, certificates and the traffic light system.
Act Party leader David Seymour wants New Zealand to send missile launchers to Ukraine - and has called New Zealand the "weakest link in the West" in its response to the Russian invasion.
Seymour told Newstalk ZB's Kate Hawkesby this morning that New Zealand needed to step up in a much more serious way to support Ukraine as it fends off attacks by Russian forces.
He said we had 24 Javelin missile launchers, which could be the difference between life or death to Ukrainian people right now.
Seymour said he hadn't seen any Russian tanks in New Zealand, so maybe New Zealand should send the launchers to Ukraine.
Asked what he would have done if he were in government, Seymour said he would have called Australia to ask what they were doing and how New Zealand could help.
"What's worrying about our current stance is that we're out of step with our traditional allies," he said, adding that New Zealand could not afford to be separate from the rest of the free world.
"A country that depends on collective security and a rules-based order can't be seen as the weakest link in the West."
The Defence Force is offering just over a thousand body armour plates, 473 helmets and 571 camouflage vests but is not sending weapons - though it has not been ruled out.
The Government is also giving an extra $5 million for fuel, rations and medical kits.
But University of Otago international relations expert Robert Patman told Hawkesby New Zealand should seriously consider giving Ukraine military aid.
"Ukraine's in a desperate situation and needs all the help it can get. And we've got a big stake, along with most other countries, in seeing Ukraine through this crisis so that Mr Putin fails in his attempt to invade a neighbouring country and subdue it."
Patman said the Government had not ruled out giving lethal aid or weapons to Ukraine and he believed it would likely do so in the near future.
The situation in Ukraine was deteriorating rapidly, with shocking scenes overnight of civilians being shelled and a supermarket attacked.
People carry wooden boards to cover the windows of a building damaged by a bombing the previous day in Kyiv. Photo / Vadim Ghirda, AP
There was a growing realisation that the rest of the world had to communicate that the Putin regime's behaviour was unacceptable.
Ukraine was a democratic country, which had given up nuclear weapons, Patman said.
A lot of what it did converged with New Zealand, and what we stood for, so it was very important this country showed solidarity.
New Zealand did not have big military capability compared with many countries, but it would be a step in the right direction to offer that help, Patman said.
But he did not agree with Seymour's comments that New Zealand was the West's weakest link.
"If you want to talk about weak links, you should start with the UK. Boris Johnson's Government has taken £2 million ($3.8m) from oligarchs close to Putin since he's been Prime Minister.
"We don't have that sort of interference in our domestic affairs. We haven't promoted a Lord of Siberia that is the son of an intelligence official to the House of Lords, which the Conservative Government has done."
