There was a time when New Zealand was this plucky little country in the south Pacific. It was a country willing to stand up to France against nuclear weapons; act when nobody else would on the Rwandan genocide and join with Australia to stop Indonesian violence in East Timor in 1999.
Where are we now? Where is the country that in late 2016 was okay with demanding Israel cease its illegal settlement activities in Palestine – the same Israel now trying to take a much harmed Palestine by force?
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says that the declaration of famine in Gaza does not change the non-position we have on the worst atrocity of the 21st Century. His Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters – who has had prior terms under former Labour Prime Ministers Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern – has said “we will carefully consider the position over the next month”. An incredible act of non-action at a time when Australia, normally as blindly pro-America as one can get, has shown uncharacteristically strong leadership on the matter by announcing its imminent recognition of Palestine.
There was a time when our actions brought incredible mana to our Government, a demonstrable sense of pride across the country that we – a little island nation in the southwest Pacific were able to stand up and be counted. Stand up and be counted in situations where nations that we thought were our friends, our allies, turned out to be not so much. In countries that otherwise had hardly heard of us, and who most New Zealanders probably could not place on a map, our actions reverberated.
So, what has changed?
For over a decade now, but in particular in the last two years, our regard for international law has been on the wane.
In the 80 years since World War 2 ended, New Zealand has done much on the world stage to support international institutions and build up a body of international law that – imperfect as it is – has helped to prevent/discourage major international incidents that might have been civilizations undoing. Among those instruments is the 1966 Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, which we are a signatory to. It gives effect to the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and includes freedom from torture, freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, association – among others.
Since 11 September 2001, there has been a general decline in regard for this across the west. In our attempt to show we condemn terrorism and fight it in all of its forms, nations – including New Zealand – have enacted legislation that has undermined our signatures on this and other legal instruments.
In the last few years deliberately antagonistic actors have entered New Zealand politics, as well as those of other countries. Their objective is to turn New Zealanders against New Zealanders. As part of this, organisations such as the Free Speech Union, Taxpayers Union, Hobsons Pledge and others are deliberately distorting the rights and freedoms enshrined in the legal instruments such as the C.C.P.R. – Article 19 pertaining to freedom of speech for example has three subsections, the third of which says that such speech shall not be legally or reputationally damaging.
Now, in 2025 we have a weak right-wing coalition that seems to be crippled by fear of annoying its backers, who very much support an isolationist America, a genocidal Israel and ignore the growing anti-Maori, anti-LGBTQ trend that has developed. A coalition so out of touch that it might not make it to the 2026 general election, yet is enabled by an equally weak and disinterested opposition.
How Has New Zealand gone from being strong and brave, to cowardly and weak?
Leftist Kiwi Writes 