Christopher Luxon had one job this week: explain to New Zealand where the country stands on the biggest geopolitical crisis in a generation. He blew it.
Across a disastrous Monday, including a morning radio round on RNZ, an interview with Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking, and then a post-Cabinet press conference that may go down as one of the worst of his tenure, the Prime Minister fumbled, misspoke, contradicted himself, and ultimately left the country none the wiser about what his Government actually thinks of the US-led military strikes on Iran.
By this morning, Luxon was already walking things back. He told reporters on his way into caucus that he had “misspoken” at the press conference when he said New Zealand supported “any action” to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon. He clarified that New Zealand definitely does not support the likes of carpet bombing. But the damage was done.
To be fair, small states sometimes hedge in crises. They buy time, keep options open, and avoid saying anything that becomes tomorrow’s diplomatic handbrake. But hedging isn’t the same as incoherence, and it isn’t the same as refusing to apply your own stated principles. What we’ve seen this week isn’t a careful balancing act. It’s a Government trying to avoid offending Washington while also dodging accountability at home.
The gaffes matter less than what they reveal: a government with no real strategy. The Luxon Government is desperately trying to appease Donald Trump by refusing to condemn or even mildly criticise the military strikes. Nobody in Cabinet will say this outright, of course. But the orientation is unmistakable, and Acting Prime Minister David Seymour came closest to admitting it, saying New Zealand was “not rushing to judgement” and warning: “Going off half-cocked can be very costly for a small nation.”
That’s about the closest anyone in Cabinet has come to telling the truth. Everything else has been evasion, sold as caution.
The Homer Simpson doctrine
The best analysis of Luxon’s performance this week comes from the NZ Herald’s political editor Thomas Coughlan, whose column today takes apart the Prime Minister’s inability to say anything meaningful about the Iran crisis.
Coughlan’s central image is perfect: Luxon’s defence policy is “the foreign policy equivalent of Homer Simpson quietly retreating into the bushes.” The Spinoff’s Hayden Donnell picked up the same reference, dubbing the Government’s approach “the ‘Homer Simpson disappearing into a hedge’ approach to foreign policy.” Both are right. This Government doesn’t want to be noticed. It wants to disappear from the conversation entirely and hope nobody asks hard questions.
Coughlan writes that “Luxon struggled to articulate where New Zealand stood on the conflict, what it meant for the country today, and the world in which New Zealanders live. And that is a problem.”
It is a problem. Prime ministers need to be able to talk about things that matter. And New Zealand’s silence on legality and morality is itself a kind of statement, and one the rest of the world can read perfectly well.
A Train wreck press conference
Monday’s post-Cabinet press conference was a train wreck. Luxon was asked, repeatedly, whether New Zealand supported the US and Israeli strikes. He couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Instead, he returned over and over to his talking point about the evil Iranian regime. As Coughlan noted, “Luxon couldn’t really articulate a response, beyond saying that New Zealand abhorred the ‘evil’ Iranian regime and how it treated its people. It’s surprising Luxon did not have a more eloquent answer to this question, which is the most pertinent one for New Zealand.”
On RNZ’s Morning Report, the exchange was even more painful to hear. Presenter Corin Dann was reduced to sputtering: “Why can’t you answer this question?” Donnell captured the absurdity: “The best way to think of our position on the US military strikes is as the closest you can get to not having a position while still saying words.”
At one point, apparently sensing that he needed to be clearer, Luxon declared: “My position isn’t that different to Australia’s position”, and then, more firmly: “Our position is the same as the Australian position.” But as Donnell pointed out, that’s not actually true. Australia has explicitly said it supports the US strikes. New Zealand has merely “acknowledged” them. These are different words, and they mean different things. Either Luxon doesn’t understand the distinction, or he was trying to sound tougher than his own Government’s written statement allows.
Sam Sachdeva, writing in Newsroom, captured the wider picture. Luxon was “fumbling his words on more than one occasion and offering unconvincing answers when asked about the legality of the US-Israel strikes and their consequences.” He misspoke multiple times. At one point, asked why the Government was willing to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine without a detailed intelligence assessment but wouldn’t do the same on Iran, Luxon got his countries mixed up: “The Iranian regime, administration has not been funding international global terrorism around the world,” he said, clearly meaning to refer to Ukraine. He also muddled Israel and Iran at another point, saying New Zealand had “long supported actions to prevent Israel from getting access to a nuclear weapon.”
And then came the question that crystallised everything. A reporter asked whether “any action” to stop Iran, which was the language Luxon himself had used, would extend to carpet bombing. The Prime Minister visibly floundered: “Well, I mean, we obviously understand – we’re not saying that, what we’re saying is, we understand there’s – I don’t know how to be any clearer guys.”
You couldn’t write a less clear statement on purpose.
Why Luxon can’t say what he thinks
Sachdeva noted that the Ukraine-Iran contradiction is perhaps the most damaging. New Zealand was perfectly willing to call Russia’s invasion of Ukraine illegal without waiting for Putin’s intelligence briefings. But when it comes to the US striking Iran, in a situation where Pentagon officials have reportedly told Congress there was no evidence of an imminent Iranian attack, suddenly Luxon needs to see all the classified material before he can form a view.
Luxon’s line that “issues of legality are for Israel and the US to talk to because we’re not party to that information” is, frankly, absurd. New Zealand doesn’t need a CIA briefing to read the UN Charter. The New Zealand Government didn’t need one for Ukraine, and it doesn’t need one for Iran. As Coughlan points out, Luxon “said he had not seen any intelligence, hadn’t asked for any, and didn’t plan to do so beyond regular officials meetings.” A prime minister who won’t even ask for intelligence about the biggest military action in the Middle East since the Iraq War is not a prime minister who is taking the situation seriously.
Luxon won’t say what he thinks because that would annoy Washington. And that is the one thing this Government will not do.
Coughlan nails the calculation: “You can guess that most of the Cabinet probably, deep down, disagrees with these strikes (even those who detest Iran), but the strategy this week appears to be to nod politely in the direction of Washington, say as little as possible and hope no one notices.”
The Spectrum within the Coalition
There is almost certainly a real spectrum of opinion within the Coalition Government on these strikes, even though the public messaging has been carefully managed to obscure it.
At the most pro-Trump end of that spectrum sit Winston Peters and Shane Jones, and NZ First generally. Peters has been instinctively sympathetic to the action, framing it as a consequence of decades of Iranian sponsorship of terrorism. His line that the strikes are “not an excuse ... but an explanation” is telling. NZ First’s worldview is, broadly, that the US is right and Iran had it coming.
At the other end, the Act Party and Seymour are instinctively suspicious of costly military adventures and of Trump in particular. Seymour’s emphasis on “not rushing to judgement” doesn’t read as a ringing endorsement of the bombing campaign so much as a plea to change the subject.
In the middle is National, which contains its own internal spectrum from those who are privately appalled to those who are more comfortable with what’s happening. But what unites them all, to varying degrees, is a pragmatic, realist approach: walk a tightrope of statements that don’t fully endorse the strikes, but don’t stand out as critical either. Keep your head down. Hope the crisis passes.
Coughlan’s devastating critique
Coughlan does more than describe the mess, he also spells out what’s at stake for New Zealand. He tears apart Luxon’s argument that because the Iranian regime is “evil,” the strikes can be “acknowledged” without further scrutiny. He contrasts this with North Korea, which is even more repressive and already has nuclear weapons, yet nobody is calling for bombing Pyongyang: “But if the wickedness of a regime and its potential to possess threatening weapons is the bar for offensive strikes, that is a recipe for international anarchy, in which the cost of global instability is greater than any benefit gained from the demise of an evil regime (and let’s not forget, the Iranian regime hasn’t yet been deposed). That is why international law puts a high threshold on international intervention.”
Coughlan then turns to the bigger strategic picture. The Luxon Government, he argues, has “clearly decided to drift closer to the US on matters of defence and security”, and yet it denies this tilt is happening. “If this is the case, if New Zealand’s defence policy is to slouch further in the direction of Washington, the public is entitled to an explanation, and an honest airing of the costs and benefits of such an approach. Instead, Luxon denies this American tilt is taking place.”
The challenge of tilting towards Washington, Coughlan warns, is that you’re tilting towards a Trump administration that is “so volatile and capricious that any potential security dividend from drawing closer could be more than undermined by the damage to New Zealand’s standing in the rest of the world, if we are seen to back or ‘acknowledge’ a country that regularly and wantonly undermines the global order.”
Coughlan’s conclusion needs to be read in full: “The risk of Luxon’s remarks today is that they are at best silent on that shift, and at worst a tacit endorsement of it. It’s one thing to prepare for a world in which rules give way to power, it’s quite another to aid it into being.”
That’s about as blunt as NZ political commentary gets. Coughlan is saying, in effect, that the Luxon Government is helping to dismantle the very rules-based order that keeps New Zealand safe.
The Invisible foreign policy
Donnell’s analysis in The Spinoff makes a related point about what New Zealand’s foreign policy has become under this Government. He traces a pattern: the Government’s refusal to recognise Palestine when 157 UN member states did so, Peters’ rebuke of the Reserve Bank governor for signing an international letter of solidarity, and now the Iran non-response. “New Zealand’s firmest recent commitment has been to being non-committal,” Donnell writes. Our independent foreign policy “has been shifting into an invisible one.”
The upside of saying nothing is that nobody gets mad at you. The downside, as Donnell observes, is that “the public at home – or your braver allies abroad – could see you as equivocating and spineless in an unfurling global crisis which has so far claimed the lives of more than 200 people. In saying little, you might offend no-one, or alienate everyone.”
The Uncomfortable truth about dependence
Ian Fletcher, the former director of the GCSB, published an analysis in the NBR today that offers a different lens on the same dilemma. Fletcher is bracingly honest about New Zealand’s position: “much as we might not want to face it, we are totally dependent on American power.” We use American software, rely on the US to keep sea-lanes open, and trade using a dollar-driven global financial system. “We may be repelled by what look like cavalier acts of aggression, but we need the aggressor.”
Fletcher calls this “moral ambiguity,” and says “foreign affairs always involve” it. His broader view is that the war will likely be over by Easter, and that the best outcome for New Zealand would be a liberalised Iran re-entering the global economy.
Fletcher’s analysis is at least refreshingly honest. He’s not pretending there’s an easy answer. But the fact that New Zealand depends on American power doesn’t mean the Government has to pretend the exercise of that power is always justified. Helen Clark’s 2003 decision to keep New Zealand out of Iraq was made in the full knowledge that the US wouldn’t be happy about it. The sky didn’t fall.
The Economic shadow hanging over everything
There’s another dimension to the Government’s reticence that hasn’t been discussed enough: the economic terror that the Iran crisis is causing in ministers’ offices.
The Luxon Government has built its political identity around economic recovery and cost-of-living relief. An election is approaching. Consumer confidence was already wobbling before the strikes. Now oil prices have spiked, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has come to a halt, Emirates and Qatar flights are grounded, and 4,000 containers of New Zealand exports are stuck in transit. New Zealand exported $3.1 billion worth of products to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries last year. Goldman Sachs is forecasting LNG price rises of 130% if the disruption continues through March.
The NZ Government knows perfectly well that a prolonged Middle East conflict could derail the economic recovery it has staked everything on. Rising petrol prices feed into food prices, transport costs, and inflation. The Reserve Bank has already flagged geopolitical uncertainty as a key risk. Higher oil prices could push inflation up enough to stall or reverse interest rate cuts, which is exactly the outcome the Government is desperate to avoid heading into an election year.
This is probably another reason why Luxon won’t criticise Trump. Not only does he fear political retaliation from Washington; he fears the economic fallout. The last thing the Government wants is to pick a fight with the US while also dealing with a cost-of-living crisis that Trump’s war may have just made worse.
The ODT calls it what it is
Today’s Otago Daily Times editorial is blunt in a way that Luxon has not been. It describes the US strikes as smacking of “wanton recklessness and blatant snubbing of US domestic, let alone international, law.” It calls the targeted killing of Khamenei “calculated assassination, something which it is problematic to sanction in one breath while condemning terrorism with the next.”
The ODT catalogues the growing list of countries where Trump has used military force in recent months: Venezuela, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and notes the irony of a president who promised no more foreign wars. It warns that “a leadership void will have been created in Iran, to be filled by goodness knows whom,” and that the conflict “could spiral out of control.”
This is a provincial New Zealand newspaper saying what the Prime Minister will not.
What happens when things get worse?
The hardest questions for the Government are still ahead. The war in Iran is escalating, not winding down. Trump has warned of bigger strikes to come. Iran’s retaliatory attacks have hit Gulf states, killed US soldiers, and shut down civilian airports. What happens when the civilian death toll climbs further? What happens if there is genuine carpet bombing – the scenario that Luxon couldn’t bring himself to answer a hypothetical question about?
Would New Zealand get involved militarily if asked? Luxon says no request has been made and there are no plans to do so. But Helen Clark has already pointed out that in these situations, the pressure builds incrementally. The UK is already letting the US use British bases. Clark has said the question needs to be put directly: would New Zealand put boots on the ground?
Will New Zealand side with Gulf states like the UAE and Qatar, who are reportedly lobbying allies to persuade Trump to take an off-ramp from the conflict? Or will we continue to nod politely and say nothing?
And what about the economic consequences? If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, if oil prices hit $100 a barrel, if inflation surges and interest rates go back up – what does the Government say then? That it was worth it? That we couldn’t have known? That it’s not our place to comment?
Coughlan warns that “there will be increased pressure on the Government to come up with a view on the legality of these strikes.” He’s right. The Homer Simpson strategy of backing slowly into the hedge may have bought the Government a day or two. But the hedge is running out.
The Rules-based order is fraying, and NZ is helping it fray
What’s really at stake here is not just New Zealand’s relationship with the United States. It’s the system that has kept countries like New Zealand safe for decades. The rules-based international order isn’t just an abstract principle that lawyers argue about. It is the thing that stops bigger countries from doing whatever they want to smaller ones.
Luxon himself acknowledged this in his State of the Nation speech, quoting MFAT’s own assessment that the rules-based system is breaking down. But as Coughlan noted, the original MFAT line was critical of this shift, warning it would threaten small countries like New Zealand. Luxon used the line to describe the world. Coughlan’s point is that Luxon is also helping to create this shift away from the rules-based order.
If we accept that the US can bomb a sovereign nation in the middle of diplomatic negotiations, assassinate its leader, and pursue regime change without any legal justification – and the Government’s response is to “acknowledge” it – then New Zealand is a participant in the erosion of the order that it depends on. It is, as Coughlan says, one thing to prepare for a world where rules give way to power. It is quite another to aid it into being.
Sachdeva’s observation is apt: “As with the debate over Israel’s war in Gaza, there will doubtless be a sense within the coalition that its critics are expecting too much of it when New Zealand has little meaningful influence over events in the Middle East.” But as Peters himself likes to say: words matter. And right now, New Zealand’s words are saying more about our Government’s character than ministers seem to realise.
Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of the Democracy Project
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