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Gaza, October 25, 2023  (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Gaza, October 25, 2023 (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

PoliticsNovember 8, 2023

New Zealand’s fractured response to the Israel-Hamas war

Gaza, October 25, 2023  (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Gaza, October 25, 2023 (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Calls are mounting for the government to take a stronger stance in its response to the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza. But what are its options?

For the past month, social media channels and news outlets have been filled with photographs, videos and testimonies that paint a harrowing picture of the situation in Gaza: entire residential blocks flattened by Israel’s relentless bombing campaign of the besieged strip, children covered in dust and blood being rushed from rubble, rows of dead bodies shrouded in white sheets and inconsolable grieving parents. “This is an avalanche of human suffering that’s 100% man made,” Doctors Without Borders’ Tanya Haj-Hassan told the BBC last week in an interview that was shared widely on social media. “It’s a stain on our collective humanity.” 

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has continued for four weeks in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack in which the militant group killed 1,400 people in Israel, and took 222 hostages, according to Israeli officials. Israeli forces have since killed more than 9,488 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials. The supply of basic aid like food, water, fuel and medical supplies to Gaza has been cut off since Israel began its bombing campaign. The question that some are asking in the face of this anguish is whether New Zealand is doing as much as it can in response. And if not, why?

Four weeks of protests in support of Palestine

More than 16,000km away from Gaza, it’s the gulf between the horrors of the worsening humanitarian situation and a perceived lack of action from political leaders that has coloured the mood of recent demonstrations in Aotearoa. Echoing protests around the world, on Saturday thousands gathered across the country in solidarity with Palestine for the fourth weekend in a row. There have been repeated calls for the New Zealand government to demand an immediate ceasefire, as well as long-lasting resolutions to the broader Israel-Palestine conflict which dates back more than a century. Both Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party have backed the call for a ceasefire. 

A Palestine solidarity demonstration at the Auckland Domain on October 4, 2023. (Image: Supplied)

A tempered official response 

Underpinning these petitions, protests and posts being shared on social media is the perception that our government needs to take stronger steps to end the war. So what is shaping the government’s response?

Hamas’s October 7 attack occurred just days before our general election. Waikato University law professor Alexander Gillespie believes New Zealand’s response has been coloured by the realities of our transitional political situation, coupled with a desire to not ruffle the feathers of our allies, like the US and UK, who have been outspoken in their unqualified support for Israel. 

And for the most part, our leadership has mirrored other western nations’ official response to the ongoing conflict. Since October 7, the response has been largely bipartisan across the two major parties. Both Labour and National leaders immediately and unequivocally condemned the attacks by Hamas and expressed their recognition of “Israel’s right to defend itself”. In outgoing prime minister Chris Hipkins’ initial statement on October 8, he also underscored the government’s concern that the situation could escalate and called for restraint and “the upholding of international humanitarian law by all parties”. Last week, incoming prime minister Chris Luxon once again reiterated support of “Israel’s right to defend itself”, but added that he expected “all parties to act in accordance with international law and demonstrate basic humanity.” 

Over the course of this bombardment the government has strayed slightly from New Zealand’s allies by calling for humanitarian pauses and noting the importance of upholding international law. However, neither major party has been willing to condemn Israel’s military response, which has killed thousands, or call for a ceasefire. 

The growing call for ceasefire

While there seems to be near unanimous agreement among world leaders that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is intolerable, there’s been vast disagreement over how to break the cycle. Some have called for a “humanitarian pause”, a break in fighting to let aid into the territory, while others have called for a ceasefire, which is considered to be a more permanent solution. Words like “humanitarian truce”, “humanitarian ceasefire” and “a cessation of hostilities” have cropped up too, only adding to confusion.

Just over a week ago, Hipkins and Luxon agreed that New Zealand would vote for a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling for a sustained humanitarian truce. It was a notable break from our closest allies, including Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, who abstained from voting, and the US, who voted against it. 

Votes cast by members at the United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for an an immediate humanitarian truce on October 27. (Source: UN)

Locally, outgoing prime minister Chris Hipkins last week told 1News that a ceasefire was not a “realistic prospect” and Luxon has said that the focus at the moment should be on achieving a humanitarian truce. Just days ago, United Nations experts called on Israel’s allies to agree to an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and said time was running out for the Palestinian people, who were at “grave risk of genocide”. 

While the calls for the government to demand a ceasefire have grown across the country as they have worldwide, Gillespie advocates what he believes is a pragmatic approach from New Zealand’s leaders. “None of that terminology is that important,” says Gillespie. “What’s important, and the principle that they need to emphasise, is getting humanitarian assistance to two million civilians at a critical time.” 

Does New Zealand have any real sway?

New Zealand’s power is limited by the fact that we’re not currently on the UN’s Security Council, which makes binding decisions. On top of that, Gillespie believes there’s a good chance that Israel will not accept a pause, “no matter what you call it”.

Protests have also called on the government to more explicitly condemn Israel’s potential breaches of international human rights law. Rather than rushing to make condemnations, Gillespie argues that the government’s response should push for neutral investigations into potential crimes – such as bombings of hospitals and refugee camps – and stress the general importance of upholding the international rules of law. “No matter which countries and which groups are involved, whether people are or aren’t guilty, we need to echo as loudly as we can that there are rules which are at risk of being broken,” he says. 

Has New Zealand done enough?

Robert Patman, international relations professor in the University of Otago’s politics department, sees gaps in our response so far and believes that New Zealand’s independent foreign policy gives the government space to advocate a stronger position on the conflict. “Strangely for a country which I think is deeply committed to fairness, New Zealand has been quite reticent to speak out against measures taken by Israel which are inconsistent with international humanitarian law,” he says. 

Fire and smoke rise above buildings in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike on October 8 (Photo: IBRAHIM HAMS/AFP via Getty Images)

Though he was impressed by New Zealand’s independent stance calling for a sustained humanitarian truce at the UN General Assembly, Patman believes other opportunities have been missed. “I was a bit surprised that after the New Zealand government said it expected humanitarian law to be observed, that when it became quite apparent it was not being observed and we had almost indiscriminate bombardment of a densely populated area, that we didn’t at least verbally protest.” 

While our power to influence on our own is limited, Patman believes New Zealand’s voice is valued among the global community and that we could play a key role in organising with other countries similarly concerned about the situation. This might look like a collective message that “there’s no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” or stressing the “urgent need for a reinvigorated two-state approach”. 

“As a small country, we can’t do too much but we can act as a bit of an entrepreneur of ideas,” he says. “It seems to me that one thing New Zealand can do is present itself as the voice of reason.” 

Taking a stronger stance undeniably runs the risk of upsetting allies, says Patman, but he questions whether that’s a good enough reason to not follow our own moral compass.

Patman points more broadly to New Zealand’s response to past international situations where human rights abuses were taking place as examples of “where we’ve been prepared to stand up for our principles”. To him, New Zealand’s stance on nuclear security, the 1994 Rwandan genocide (where New Zealand used its position on the Security Council to push for a peacekeeping presence – making it an outlier at the time) and on the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States (where then prime minister Helen Clark criticised the invasion and opposed New Zealand military action in the war) demonstrate this.

“Politics is often the choice between the disagreeable and the intolerable,” says Patman. “You have to work out whether this country should remain comfortably silent while thousands of innocent civilians are killed, or do we risk ruffling a few feathers?” 

Keep going!
Triangle of gladness. Image: Archi Banal
Triangle of gladness. Image: Archi Banal

PoliticsNovember 8, 2023

Coalition talks: the wins that make a three-way handshake

Triangle of gladness. Image: Archi Banal
Triangle of gladness. Image: Archi Banal

What big gains will Act and NZ First be seeking to score in negotiations with National?

These things at least we know. With the composition of parliament now clear, talks to form a government are progressing at a great speed and they are moving slowly. National and Act are close to inking a deal and they are a long way away from inking a deal. Christopher Luxon has had dinner with Winston Peters a couple of times so no longer does not know him, but Winston Peters does not know David Seymour well enough to distinguish him from a prank caller. It is unknown, but to be hoped, that Seymour has listed Peters, a new addition to his contacts, as “Camilla”

In other words, we don’t know very much at all. But beyond the unavoidable generalisations and snippets of soap opera that fill the vacuum, it is safe to say that both of the smaller parties with which National is in talks to form a government of “last resort” are focused not just on the result of the 2023 election and what it affords them in terms of negotiation leverage, but on the election of 2026. 

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MMP history says it is hell of a difficult to get a support party re-elected. To do so, Act and NZ First will need to be able to boast clear and quantifiable wins. These changes, they will need to tell their past and potential voters as the next election rolls around, are changes we made happen.

There are some issues that all three are in lockstep on – ditching the Māori Health Authority, for example; cracking down on gangs; kiboshing Auckland light rail; scrapping Three Waters (though not so much taking responsibility for whatever the alternative reform looks like). But leaving those to one side, as the parties crack their knuckles ahead of a three-way handshake, what are some of the wins – whether by adding to, accelerating or handbraking the National Party programme – that Winston Peters and David Seymour might be seeking to chalk up?

Possible wins for Act

Ministry for Regulation

After buzzing onstage in a yellow Suzuki Swift, David Seymour told his election-year rally that Act would install a new Ministry for Regulation. And while the idea of creating a new chunk of the state to crack down on a swelling state might have a touch of the Yes, Minister about it, Seymour insists that it would comfortably earn its keep by slashing red tape and policing a new Regulatory Standards Act.

Seymour is keen to be the minister in charge, brandishing the magenta secateurs and raging at the state from within. Relatedly, Act will push – via this ministry and other means – to increase the demand for public sector cuts up from the 6.5% National has said it will require.

Tough on crime

One of the heartiest three-way handshakes among the trio is on the three-strikes legislation. The issue is more about who gets credit for reinstating it – all are determined to demonstrate their tough-on-crime credentials. While Act, who introduced the bill alongside National in 2010, can claim it was their baby, NZ First can point to blindsiding Labour by applying the handbrake in 2018. (It was repealed the following term.) 

Though National is highly unlikely to consider anyone but Mark Mitchell for the police portfolio, Act will be keen on something in the law and order mix, such as corrections or associate justice.

The Treaty

Act campaigned full-throatedly on a referendum on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, at times suggesting it was a bottom line. That pledge, which many have decried as ahistorical and likely to engender civil unrest, seems unlikely to make the cut. Luxon continues it would be “divisive”, and may fear that such a project could swallow up a full term.

Seymour is likely still to want something in this area to sate some appetites in his support base, in the form perhaps of a public inquiry or a select committee inquiry, examining fundamental rights, governance arrangements and Treaty principles, complete with public hearings and the rest. 

(While it’s unlikely this referendum sees the light of day, it wouldn’t surprise me if one or both parties push for a 2026 referendum on a policy area that can be framed as a constitutional or conscience matter; strategically speaking, it adds an extra impetus to a small party to be championing a referendum cause in tandem with a general election.)

Commerce

In a cost of living crisis, obvious targets of fury across the political spectrum are the massively profitable supermarkets and the massively profitable banks (chuck in the energy companies, too). Act is less inclined than other parties to disdain profit, but in acclaiming the fruits of free enterprise, they’ll focus instead on whether the enterprise is properly free. Grabbing the commerce portfolio would be a means to expand the war on regulation and plug into resource management reform.

NZ First is tipped to be scrapping for this territory, too – it would love to wear a great big “sheriff” badge and square up to the Australian corporations.

Agriculture

Act made real inroads in rural constituencies over the last three years and it could push for one of its prize signings and new MPs, former Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard, to take the agriculture portfolio, with a remit to lead a working group to identify regulations to cut and represent the sector in whatever the latest effort at RMA reform looks like. 

Some in National would resist relinquishing such a traditionally significant role, but coalitions mean compromises. 

A review of gun laws

Another important constituency for Act, which sprung out of David Seymour’s opposition to reforms post-March 15 that he decried as overhasty: firearms owners. National will be reluctant to wave through Act’s demands (such as binning the registry) wholesale, but they could well go along with a formal review of some sort that looks at the laws as a whole.

Education

A fresh push on partnership aka charter schools is a reasonable bet under an Act associate education minister – in a rerun of Seymour’s project after the 2011 election – though there was less emphasis on this policy priority during the campaign than many expected, and National’s Erica Stanford is heavily favoured to be minister. 

Image: Archi Banal

Possible wins for NZ First

Foreign minister

Had one of NZ First or Act been comfortably the second biggest party of a governing trio, you’d expect one would supply the deputy prime minister. As it stands, the likelihood is that the role will instead go to Nicola Willis, who, like Bill English to John Key, would be finance minister and deputy PM (if it is a three-way formal coalition, chances are the support parties will get an associate finance minister apiece).

Winston Peter may instead be satisfied with a return to that other esteemed office of state, foreign minister. Given the geopolitical turmoil and heightened relevance of the Pacific, the role of New Zealand’s top diplomat amounts to much more than a bauble. And though at times – such as when he’s squirting out unhinged tweets seizing on a tragedy to falsely insinuate some kind of coverup by Jacinda Ardern’s office – it is hard to fathom, he has generally made a decent foreign minister in the past. 

Age of super

“Improving the lives of our seniors” is one of the five “election planks” for NZ First – and a perennial focus for the party. Top of the list on this front: “The age of retirement will remain at 65 years,” reads the header in the manifesto. “No ifs, buts, or maybes.”

While they’d be voted down 2-1 by the other two parties on this front – National wants to lift the age of qualification in the 2040s, Act wants to do it in five years – neither places anything like the emphasis on the issue that NZ First does. A handbrake on super changes, together with a supercharged Supergold Card, would be brandished as big wins by Peters.

Foreign property purchase

More traditional NZ First territory, and another chance to apply the handbrake to a central National pledge, by halting the opening of the door to foreign property buyers. It creates a fresh hole in revenue plans, given that National’s tax cuts were in part funded by a tax on foreign buyers, who would be eligible only to buy properties over $2m, but given the questions raised about projected revenue, they may not be too devastated to see it culled.

Given National’s commitments to tax cuts – Nicola Willis has staked her job on the promise – the question would be where the dollars would come from instead. Neither Act nor NZ First is likely to be troubled by tax cuts being revisited in amount or timing.

The regions

If the Provincial Growth Fund wasn’t a raging success, any fault lies with a “Wellington-centric” Labour Party, says NZ First. Its 2023 manifesto calls for a Regional Productivity Growth Fund – “what the PGF ought to have been from day one ie the infrastructure to unblock businesses who invest their private capital and to grow jobs.” If NZ First does get something here, economic circumstances mean it will be nothing like the billion-dollar budget of its forerunner.

The coalition deal with Labour in 2017 also included “a commitment to relocate government functions into the regions”. There are scant examples of this happening (Forestry NZ in Hamilton is one) and NZ First could look to have a go at this again, adding a relocation impulse to the public sector crackdown. 

Energy

There has been some speculation that NZ First (and perhaps Act, too) could be eyeing up the energy portfolio as a means by which to exert influence. Peters has spoken repeatedly about energy security, often in reference to Marsden Point, which has disestablished its refining capability. 

There are compelling energy security arguments in a volatile world and global economy to have a refining capability in Aotearoa, including crude oil drilled off Taranaki (which Marsden was unable to refine). For NZ First, a cynic might suggest, there is another factor: the Marsden Point cause has been latched on to by some in the “freedom movement”. 

The culture stuff

“Woke extremism” was a frequent target of a NZ First campaign to hoover up support by targeting everything from transgender bathroom use to vaccine injury claims. It’s not impossible, on the latter point, that NZ First could push to have the scope of the Royal Commission on the Covid-19 response expanded – though that carries with it the risk of upsetting the “mother of all revelations” crowd with things like science.

One option – which might find favour, too, with Act – would be to let loose some sort of “free-speech taskforce”. Or to seek to oblige the Human Rights Commission to put greater emphasis on free expression. Or, to hell with it, add free speech to the Reserve Bank mandate alongside inflation. 

Oh, and the first item listed under “transport” in NZ First’s manifesto? “‘Waka Kotahi’ to become ‘New Zealand Transport Agency’ once again, and end the ‘Boat on the Road’ nonsense.”

Minister for racing

Well, obviously.

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