Author: Eve Bain

With the text of the TPP having just been released, all eyes are now on Parliament as the agreement goes through the international treaty examination process. This will draw attention to the scrutiny function of select committees and especially their ability to hold the Government accountable for its activities in foreign affairs and trade. The TPP negotiations were often criticised for their lack of transparency. So it will be interesting to see what information about that process will be made available to the committee – and whether the committee will insist on being informed in this way.

The Legislature and the Executive have distinct roles, even within New Zealand’s somewhat blurred version of the separation of powers. Parliament is the "Grand Inquest of the Nation" and the Executive is the "Defender of the Realm". Both are necessary, but what happens when these roles conflict? Does national security or trade negotiation confidentiality limit parliamentary sovereignty?

Author: Beth Greener

‘Like-minded’ is a phrase bandied about with reference to New Zealand’s relationships with countries like Australia and the United States. It is mentioned precisely in these contexts in the last defence white paper, and, although the current 2014 Defence Assessment seems more circumspect on this matter, a joint statement by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and then-Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott last year still suggested that no other bilateral arrangement had the same ‘immediacy and commonality’. But just what exactly are we like-minded about? Are we, like the US, like-minded in thinking that military solutions may help address complex political problems? Or are we, like Australia, of the mind that the offshore detention of asylum seekers (or New Zealand citizens) in harsh conditions is appropriate and acceptable? We certainly do have reasons to maintain and extend relationships such as these historically close ties. But one sign of a healthy inter-state relationship is the ability to ascertain just where that relationship diverges in significant ways.

In regard to the first of these instances noted above, Robert Ayson recently commented that we are firmly in a ‘post-post-ANZUS’ era. I don’t disagree. Much has happened since 1985. Yet although some instances of warming have been reassuring, such as joint engagement in HADR exercises, much has been contentious. New Zealand’s role in Afghanistan may well be defensible in its emphasis on the Provincial Reconstruction Team’s role in helping to provide stability and development in Bamyan. But Afghanistan is on a downward trajectory , as evidenced by the recent Taliban takeover of much of Kunduz, virtually unopposed in its opening phases by the estimated 7,000 Afghan troops and police in situ. This raises questions about the overall strategy that New Zealand signed up to. Similarly, New Zealand’s contested engagement to help train Iraqi troops and recent suggestions that the USA will undertake ‘direct action on the ground’ in Iraq and Syria can also be read as signs that the American model has not delivered. 

Author: Robert Ayson

​In all likelihood the post-ANZUS era in New Zealand-US defence relations will be completely and utterly over in March next year. In my view, Washington is likely to accept Wellington's request to send a vessel to the Royal NZ Navy's 75th anniversary Fleet Review. It was a possible visit in 1985 by a US naval vessel which catalysed the emerging showdown over New Zealand's nuclear-free policy. So the first such arrival in over 30 years can't be more poignant. Short of the unlikely return to a formal ANZUS relationship, no single act can do more to remove any doubts that NZ-US military ties have achieved a new normal. The post-post-ANZUS period has well and truly arrived.
 
Whether the United States sends a cruiser, destroyer or frigate, the technical aspects will be the same. New Zealand's Prime Minister will be able to be ascertain that the vessel is neither nuclear propelled nor nuclear-armed. That certainty will be at the same level as it has been for naval visits from other nuclear-armed states, including the United Kingdom and China. And this is not new. The US policy that it no longer has nuclear weapons on surface ships (as opposed to some of its submarines) is well established, having arrived during the Presidency of the first George Bush. But it was simply not palatable or sensible to test the situation in the NZ-US context for many years. As a red rag to the bull of New Zealand's anti-nuclear sentiment and without an active military relationship between the two countries, a US naval visit would have stood out like a sore thumb. Both countries worked around it. From what I can tell, there was an informal understanding that the United States would not seek to send a vessel and New Zealand would not request a visit.