By Richard Bardon

10 Dec.—The many Australian Labor Party members appalled by their leader Anthony Albanese’s subservience to the USA, might well wish they could trade him for his New Zealand counterpart Chris Hipkins right about now. After several years in which its previous leadership fell increasingly under the sway of the United States, and was ousted from government in a landslide last November partly as a result, the New Zealand Labour Party seems to have rediscovered its independent streak when it comes to foreign policy. While Albanese and his senior ministers were running around the Asia-Pacific this past fortnight in their ongoing effort to rope the region into an anti-China bloc at the USA’s behest, Hipkins threw a fistful of sand in the gears of the Anglo-American war machine by announcing 1 December that if he is elected PM in 2026 his government will take no part in any projects related to the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) technology-sharing “security” pact, and will tear up any such deals the current National Party government might make in the meantime.

Two things about NZ Labour’s policy shift contrast particularly sharply, and favourably, with the ALP. The first is
that in arriving at their decision, Labour’s leadership took on board the concerns raised by party elders, and ultimately
endorsed by its rank-and-file members, about the inherent danger to national sovereignty in making New Zealand so beholden for its defence to any foreign power, no matter how many “values” they might share. The second is that in rejecting AUKUS, Labour leaders explicitly called out the project’s true purpose—namely that it aims not to establish a “deterrent” to a putatively expansionist China as its proponents claim, but rather is part of a US “containment strategy” that threatens the very peace, free trade and strategic stability Albanese and company claim it is intended to preserve.

The AUKUS pact, first announced to the public in September  2021 by US President Joe Biden and the then-PMs of Australia and the UK, Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson, has two parts, or “pillars” as they are called. Pillar I is the scheme, dubbed the “dud deal of the century” by former Labor PM Paul Keating, under which Australia is slated to spend nearly $400 billion dollars to acquire eight nuclear-powered attack submarines, comprising some mix of US-designed and -built Virginia-class boats and (eventually, maybe) a new design to be developed jointly with the UK based on US technology—but from which we are not actually guaranteed to get any subs at all, if our “partners” decide it is not in their interests to supply them. Pillar II, meanwhile, involves the joint development and/or manufacture of other ostensibly cutting-edge military and dual-use technologies, including hypersonic missiles; advanced cyber, including so-called artificial intelligence; quantum technologies, including quantum computing; and space capabilities (an incipient violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which all three nations are signatories, which forbids the militarisation of outer space and all celestial bodies).

There was never any real prospect of New Zealand becoming involved in Pillar I, given both major political parties’ commitment to the post-1984 “nuclear-free” policy, under which it will not allow nuclear-powered or -armed vessels to enter its territorial waters, let alone acquire them for itself. Cabinet papers relating to AUKUS released proactively (albeit with significant redactions) by the NZ government this August, however, state that under PM Jacinda Ardern Labour was “open to”—and indeed make it appear quite eager for—what it called “non-nuclear cooperation under Pillar II”. They also confirm that her government endorsed the overarching rationale for AUKUS: “we acknowledge the deterioration in the geostrategic security situation in our region … AUKUS is a set of arrangements to strengthen security”, states one document dated 9 March 2023, in remarks described as having agreed between then-Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Defence Minister Andrew Little.

Danger signals

In Australia such ALP elder statesmen as Keating and former foreign ministers Gareth Evans and Bob Carr, along
with a slew of retired Defence and Foreign Affairs officials, have slammed AUKUS and related agreements on US basing rights and control of Australian resources as a gross abdication of national sovereignty, in response to a non-existent threat, which puts us needlessly at risk of war with our principal trading partner China.

In New Zealand similar warnings have been sounded by luminaries from both sides of the political divide. In July of this year, after National Party PM Christopher Luxon—fresh from a guest appearance at a three-day NATO summit in Washington, DC—told London’s Financial Times that he was not only “very open” to signing up to Pillar II of AUKUS but also wanted to make New Zealand’s military a “force multiplier” for the USA and its allies (including Japan) in the Asia-Pacific region, “former Labour prime minister Helen Clark and ex-leader of the National Party Don Brash released a joint statement condemning Luxon’s comments … [saying he] was jeopardising New Zealand’s foreign policy and economic security”, independent journalist Mick Hall reported at the time. The public denunciation by two such senior politicians, Hall added—one of them the former head of Luxon’s own party—“reflects growing alarm across the political divide to the ruling [National/NZ First] coalition’s moves to involve itself in preparations for war with China.”

As Clark and Brash themselves put it, Luxon’s comments “strongly suggest that he has abandoned New Zealand’s independent foreign policy. These statements orient New Zealand towards being a full-fledged military ally of the United States”, they wrote. Yet “China not only poses no military threat to New Zealand, but it is also by a very substantial margin our biggest export market—more than twice as important as an export market for New Zealand as the US is.” They warned therefore that New Zealand “has a huge stake in maintaining a cordial relationship with China”, but that doing so “will be difficult, if not impossible … if the Government continues to align its positioning with that of the United States.” Clark had previously been scathingly critical of her former protégé Ardern for agreeing in 2021 to bring New Zealand back under the (nominal) protection of the US “nuclear umbrella” and open the way to further expanding the country’s “partnership” with NATO, and has continued publicly to oppose the idea of joining Pillar II of AUKUS given the absence of any credible military threat. As she asked rhetorically in an 8 October interview with Dr Emma Shortis, director of the international and security affairs program at the Australia Institute: “The kinds of capabilities that AUKUS Pillar II is foreshadowing … we’re sitting here thinking ‘Well, hang on—what for? And at what expense? What would this do to the defence budget; and if we acquire these weapons, what’s the potential use for them?’ So it really is a very uncomfortable feeling, to be seeing New Zealand lured towards this arrangement.”

Hipkins takes heed

In contrast to the fawning obsequy to the Americans that has seen Albanese first agree to AUKUS on the spot as opposition leader rather than break “bipartisanship” on the so-called alliance, then abuse his authority as ALP leader to quash debate in caucus and suppress rank-and-file dissent on the issue at every state and federal party convention ever since, Labour’s Hipkins has apparently taken Clark’s (et al.) warnings and the will of the party’s members to heart. At Labour’s annual national conference in Christchurch, the New Zealand Herald reported 1 December, “Labour members passed a proposal saying a Labour Government would not join AUKUS and, were another Government to join, a future Labour Government would withdraw. Hipkins, bound by party confidentiality, would not speak in detail about this, but confirmed to media that ‘under Labour, New Zealand will not be part of AUKUS’.”

In a statement published the same day on Labour’s website, Hipkins elaborated: “Our country has a fiercely independent foreign policy, and a Government I lead will not join pillars one or two of AUKUS. … Labour is deeply concerned about how much time and effort this Government has spent getting closer to the US over the past year, when we spent six years in government diversifying New Zealand’s trade interests and staunchly defending our right to be independent. New Zealand’s foreign policy will not be determined by Washington, Canberra or Beijing.” Moreover, foreign affairs spokesman David Parker issused a thinly veiled rebuke to the former two capitals, when he added that “Our foreign policy is based on principles. This does not mean we are non-aligned. We are a liberal western democracy and share those precious values with others. We support the rules-based order. We are part of Five Eyes [the ‘intelligence-sharing’ arrangement between the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and NZ], which we also value. [But] New Zealand’s interests lie in trade, peace, and in on-going diplomacy, not in being a ‘forcemultiplier’ for one super-power in a containment strategy directed against another” (emphasis added).

Sadly for both countries, however, both the ALP and the Luxon government continue to refuse to get the message. Mick Hall reports 10 December that according to briefing documents declassified the previous day, as of 7 October New Zealand has signed up as a member of the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience” (PIPIR), a US Defence Department initiative that “brings together Western allies to plug gaps in US military-industrial production … to supply [weapons to] countries the US hopes to use in a proxy conflict against China, which it has cast as a dangerous threat to Western ‘values’ and the rules-based international order. Those countries include South Korea and the Philippines, as well as self-governing [Chinese] island Taiwan.” Citing a report by Washington-based NATO think tank the Atlantic Council, Hall adds that “Possible projects include co-production of artillery pieces with South Korea, hypersonic missile interceptors with Japan, drones with Taiwan and missile and rocket systems, including Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS), with Australia.” And in the meantime, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles and his New Zealand counterpart Judith Collins announced in a 6 December joint statement that pursuant to their “commitment to modernise our alliance and further strengthen our bilateral defence relationship”, the two governments intend to create “an increasingly integrated ‘Anzac’ force. This means we will be more prepared, exercised and ready to combine our military forces in defence of our shared interests, our common values, and our territory. By doing so, we will effectively contribute to strategic balance, deter actions inimical to our interests, and be able to respond with decisive force if necessary. … We will step up our operations and activities together in the Indo-Pacific. We will introduce more common, complementary and increasingly interoperable capability, further enhancing our ability to act together in support of shared interests. We will enhance information sharing and improve policy, diplomatic and industrial coordination.”

Whom they aim to “deter” is of course not stated, but nor does it need to be. And the idea that a “combined ‘Anzac’ force” could “respond with decisive force” to any threat worthy of the name is absurd on its face. As for “interoperability”, Australia’s experience with the US “alliance” shows that what it means in practice is that the smaller force simply becomes a mere auxiliary of the larger Australia’s of the USA’s, and now, it would seem, New Zealand’s of Australia’s. Which is to say that presuming Hipkins, Parker and company are sincere in the first place, they are really going to have their work cut out for them.

Australian Alert Service, 11 Dec. 2024