Christopher Luxon’s hawkish foreign policy address in Sydney

New Zealand is not just on the same page, but is now in lockstep with Australia.

That was the general theme of keynote foreign policy address by New Zealand’s Prime Minister to a Sydney thinktank 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.

Indeed, Luxon was lavish in his praise for Peters, who he said was ‘among the most activist and impactful of New Zealand’s foreign ministers in a generation’ and was ‘reshaping our foreign policy’.

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 PM identified three areas of cooperation for New Zealand’s bilateral ties with Australia, but notably prioritised the defence relationship.

On the Aukus pact, the PM 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 Pillar II’.

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.

The PM described these efforts as ‘about scraping the barnacles off the bottom of the boat, so the boat goes faster’.

Australia is New Zealand’s third-biggest export market (behind China and the United States) and second-biggest two-way trading partner, with $NZ31 billion of two-way trade being recorded between the two nations in the year to March 2024.

Throughout the speech and in the subsequent Q&A with Lowy Institute executive director Michael Fullilove, Christopher 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, the PM 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 PM 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 then Fourth Labour Government.

With the end of the Cold War fortuitously just around the corner, Wellington was able to break free of blocs and successfully develop solid, trade-focused relations with China and others in the Global South – while gradually patching up ties with the United States.

But in Sydney, Luxon gently mocked the idea of an independent foreign policy, describing it as a ‘nonsense’. The PM 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’.

Luxon characterised Wellington’s support for Kyiv – and also New Zealand’s involvement in a US-UK-led coalition undertaking airstrikes 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 PM 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’.

When it came to Aukus Pillar II, Luxon restated a familiar ‘open to exploring’ line – a variation of which has been used by New Zealand leaders for at least a year, including by Luxon’s predecessor, Labour’s Chris Hipkins.

But the PM also linked the decision-making process with the forthcoming launch of New Zealand’s new ‘Defence Capability Plan’ – which appears to have been delayed until late 2024 or even early 2025.

The blueprint had originally been promised for June this year, then September. In the speech itself, Luxon spoke only of the ‘coming months’.

The delay might seem surprising in the context of Luxon’s pledge to bring ‘more energy, more urgency and a sharper focus’ to New Zealand’s foreign policy.

But it makes more sense when contemplating the US election date of November 5. Wellington may be hedging its bets on its interest in Aukus, given the potential for Donald Trump to re-enter the White House.

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.

But they could put New Zealand on a collision course with China.

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Geoffrey Miller is the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. He is currently working on a PhD at the University of Otago on New Zealand’s relations with the Gulf states.