New Zealand is not just on the same page, but is now in lockstep with Australia.
That was the general theme of the keynote foreign policy address by New Zealand’s prime minister to a Sydney think-tank on Thursday.
Christopher Luxon’s 20-minute speech took a decisively hawkish tone.
The Lowy Institute address restated and reiterated recent positioning both from Winston Peters, his foreign minister, and from a similar speech that Luxon had given in Tokyo in June.
Importantly, Luxon once again repeated Peters’ line that Wellington was undertaking a "foreign policy reset".
This served as a further prime ministerial endorsement of Peters as New Zealand crafts, in Luxon’s words, a "return to the fine tradition of Kiwi activism on the world stage".
But Luxon’s appearance in Sydney was more than just a rubber-stamping affair.
The Prime Minister identified three areas of co-operation for New Zealand’s bilateral ties with Australia, but notably prioritised the defence relationship.
On the Aukus pact, he said "we welcome Aukus as an initiative to enhance regional security and stability" and added that Wellington was "exploring with the Aukus partners how we could potentially participate in Pillar2".
Luxon’s second area focused on the Pacific, where New Zealand and Australia would be "steadfast partners in support of our fellow Pacific Islands Forum members".
The third and final area focused on economics and expanding bilateral economic integration between the already closely linked Australia and New Zealand.
Australia is New Zealand’s third-biggest export market (behind China and the United States) and second-biggest two-way trading partner, $NZ31 billion of two-way trade being recorded between the two nations in the year to March.
Throughout the speech and in the subsequent Q&A, Luxon sought to link economics and trade with his security-focused aims.
In the address itself, Luxon said "we can’t achieve prosperity without security", while in the Q&A, he observed that the war in Ukraine had shown "you can’t simply have separate economic interests from your security interest".
The purpose of the linkage is twofold.
First, it justifies Luxon’s relatively busy international travel schedule to any voters who might question why a prime minister who campaigned on domestic economic priorities is frequently out of the country.
Second, and more importantly, linking economics with security provides an explanation and underpinning for some rather hardline foreign policy shifts.
In the Q&A, Luxon was categorically clear that he believed the days of New Zealand’s "independent foreign policy" were over.
The independent foreign policy is the name given to a largely bipartisan approach forged by Wellington since Washington suspended its defence obligations to New Zealand under the Anzus Treaty in 1986, following a dispute that arose over the nuclear-free policy introduced by New Zealand’s Fourth Labour Government.
In Sydney, Luxon gently mocked the idea of an independent foreign policy, describing it as a "nonsense".
He sought to redefine the concept in narrow terms: "there’s 195 countries in the world with eight billion people in it, and each of those 195 countries also has an independent foreign policy".
This intentionally narrow and somewhat dubious interpretation of the cornerstone independent foreign policy doctrine took its cue from a December 2023 speech by Winston Peters to New Zealand-based foreign diplomats — once again underlining the fact that the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister were united.
But this was not the only interesting point to come out of the Q&A.
On Ukraine, Luxon said "it’s a war that Ukraine has to win and we have to back them up in order to help them to do that, and it’s absolutely essential".
He characterised Wellington’s support for Kyiv — and also New Zealand’s involvement in a US-UK-led coalition undertaking air strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen — as the country putting its money where its mouth is:
"You can believe your values, but you’ve actually got to follow it through with actions as well."
The New Zealand prime minister then went even further, drawing a straight line between Ukraine and Asia:
"Ukraine could happen in a flashpoint across our Indo-Pacific region as well."
Still, Luxon was crystal clear about his ambition when it came to defence, saying "we want to be a force multiplier for Australia".
These words will be music to Canberra’s ears.
— Geoffrey Miller is a University of Otago PhD candidate and the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst.
