Clark criticises NZ’s foreign policy ‘drift’

Former prime minister Helen Clark says New Zealand’s choreography with the US and the UK on China hacking claims revealed what she described as a concerning “drift” in NZ’s foreign policy independence.

Clark spoke alongside former New South Wales premier Bob Carr and former Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga at a Labour-hosted public discussion at Parliament yesterday morning, examining the Aukus security partnership. Clark and Carr have both been critical, respectively, of NZ and Australia’s involvement. The Government has so far denied specific plans to join Aukus. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, who was in Washington last week where he met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and deputy secretary Kurt Campbell, a key figure behind the development of the Aukus agreement, says talks have been about information gathering. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said Government was “exploring” what opportunities there would be for New Zealand under the agreement.

Clark, speaking to a packed room at Parliament yesterday, said she had observed “a drift in positioning” from the Government. She listed the Government’s unusual move to speak out, alongside the US and the UK, on claims a China-sponsored group hacked New Zealand’s Parliamentary Service and Parliamentary Counsel Office. Clark described the Government’s actions as “gratuitous”, emphasising China as a quality trading partner with which NZ had had a longstanding good relationship with. “[NZ has] no state secrets in a Parliamentary computer. We are an open book.”