NZ drags the chain on Russia (again), by Liam Hehir

One of the somewhat unexplored curiosities of Jacinda Ardern’s first term in office was the weirdly pro-Russia flavour of her administration. The driving force behind the desire for closer ties with Vladimir Putin’s regime was Winston Peters, who wanted us to look beyond Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in the pursuit of export receipts. To that end, the Labour-NZ First coalition agreement promised progress towards free trade with the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan customs union.

Ardern’s government persisted in its desires for closer economic ties with Russia even that country continued to thumb its nose at the rest of the world. The prime minister went on the record defending her foreign minister’s friendliness towards the Kremlin. When the rest of our security partners booted Russian diplomats, New Zealand failed to follow suit. The prime minister was ridiculed around the world for declaring that New Zealand didn’t have any Russian spies to expel.

All of this occurred against the backdrop of serious and sustained concerns around Russian interference in American politics and the kindly disposition of Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin. And yet while local liberals eagerly joined in on the scorn poured on the US president, New Zealand was taking a demonstrably softer approach towards Russian outrages than Trump was. And while local Labour partisans were able to simultaneously accept these contradictory positions, they did not go unnoticed in the rest of the world.

It was truly bizarre.

In the following election, Winston Peters and his party were not returned to Parliament. He has in recent weeks been reinventing himself on Twitter as some kind of Neo-Cold Warrior. It remains to be seen whether he will get away with such a shameless volte-face on the subject of the world’s most powerful rogue state,

And yet as Russia defies everything you would expect her to stand for, Ardern’s government continues to lag the rest of the world when it comes to sanctioning Russia over its destructive invasion of Ukraine. The government has for some time shilly-shallied on legislation that would enable to country to impose independent sanctions on Russia. While even the sclerotic European Union has roared into life, the prime minister has not as of yet given any concrete commitments.

This should be easy. National has an autonomous sanctions billed drafted and ready to go. The government quibbles over the details but it’s clear that there would be bipartisan support for sanctions. For whatever reason, the government seems comfortable with us remaining an outlier.

And, once again, it is being noticed.

Fraser Newman, a good friend of TBR, has a petition on Parliament’s website calling for the New Zealand government to sanction Russia. You can find it here. Please sign it .

Perhaps more importantly, share it on all your social media accounts. Help get some momentum here. If there’s one thing we know about this government, it does bend to public opinion - and it may look like that may be the only force capable of getting this government to sanction Russia as it openly seeks to devour Ukraine.


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The Blue Review

A reasonable centre-right perspective on NZ politics

The Blue Review

A reasonable centre-right perspective on NZ politics

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