New Zealand enters a new Middle East conflict
A NZDF team is being deployed to protect shipping lanes in the Red Sea. Critics say we risk being pulled into another endless war.
Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Wednesday, January 24, written by Catherine McGregor.
In today’s edition: RBNZ introduces new ‘guardrails’ to limit runaway house prices; NZ First signals it won’t support Treaty Principles Bill; Simeon Brown accused of political points-scoring over letter to Tory Whanau. But first, should New Zealand have waited for a UN mandate before joining the attacks on Houthi bases?
NZDF personnel board a Royal New Zealand Air Force C-130 Hercules bound for Afghanistan in 2020. (Photo: NZDF/Supplied)
Six-member NZDF team heading to the Red Sea
Six NZ Defence Force personnel are to be deployed to help protect shipping in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks. Prime minister Chris Luxon announced the move at yesterday afternoon’s post-Cabinet press conference, the first of 2024. The team will be part of an international coalition carrying out “collective self-defence of ships in the Middle East, in accordance with international law”, said the PM, but they will not enter Yemen, where the Houthi movement is based. The Houthis say their attacks are in response to Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza. “They say they are targeting ships which are Israeli-owned, flagged or operated, or which are heading to Israeli ports,” writes the BBC in an explainer on the situation. “However, many [ships] have no connections with Israel.”
Red Sea crisis a separate issue to Israel-Gaza, says Peters
While the Houthis are avowedly anti-Israel, foreign affairs minister Winston Peters said the NZ military action should not be conflated with its position on the Israel-Gaza conflict. “We are contributing to this military action for the same reason New Zealand has sent defence personnel to the Middle East for decades – we care deeply about regional security because our economic and strategic interests depend on it.” New Zealand supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine situation, and its official position on the current conflict is that Israel has a right to defend itself but must act according to international law and protect civilians. NZ also supports a “humanitarian pause” to the bombing and the establishment of safe areas for civilians.
Deployment ‘only likely to inflame tensions’ say Greens
Despite Peters’ assurances, NZ’s escalating involvement in the Red Sea conflict comes with risks. “[The] coalition government has effectively signed up to fight a proxy group directly connected to an angry and dangerous Iran,” writes Waikato University international law professor Alexander Gillespie. Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman David Parker said the deployment was a mistake given the lack of a UN mandate. “It’s telling that a large number of European countries including the Scandinavians are staying out of this,” Parker told the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan. The Green Party warned the move was “only likely to inflame tensions” and noted it ran contrary to New Zealanders’ “clear support… for our defence force to be focused on peace-building and enduring justice”.
Luxon rejects ‘white supremacist’ comment
The post-cab press conference was also a chance for media to ask about the government’s response to Saturday’s hui aa motu and the heightened rhetoric around race relations in general. Yesterday Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told Morning Report the government is "anti-Māori and displaying all the traits of typical white supremacists". Luxon said the comment was offensive. “I outright reject it.” He said his speech at Rātana Pā today will address issues around Māori health and education outcomes, adding that he “wants to see Māori thriving”. On The Spinoff this morning Stewart Sowman-Lund looks at the deepening concerns around the coalition government’s approach to Māori issues, and why all eyes will be on Luxon’s speech this afternoon.
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RBNZ introduces new ‘guardrails’ to limit runaway house prices
The Reserve Bank has confirmed it plans to introduce debt-to-income (DTI) restrictions for mortgage lending. Under the proposal, the DTI ratio for owner-occupiers would be six and for investors seven times their income. Owner-occupiers would thus need a $100,000 income for a loan of $600,000 and investors $100,000 for a $700,000 loan. Banks would be allowed to lend 20% of their total mortgage lending in each category to borrowers exceeding the DTI ratio. While the RBNZ expects to introduce the restrictions in mid-2024 they wouldn’t be binding at present given current market conditions. “We expect, following activation, DTI restrictions to be binding when financial stability risks are elevated, but minimally binding at other times,” the bank said. CoreLogic property economist Kelvin Davidson welcomed the move. “It might not improve affordability but it will perhaps stop it getting any worse.”
NZ First signals it won’t support Treaty Principles Bill
Act’s contentious Treaty Principles Bill now seems confirmed dead on arrival, after NZ First’s Shane Jones told Newshub his party wouldn’t vote for it after the select committee stage. PM Chris Luxon had kept Act’s hopes alive by refusing to unequivocally say the same, but as Derek Cheng observes this morning in the Herald (paywalled), the bill needs all three coalition parties’ support to progress through parliament. However Act may have just been thrown a (very weak) life line: “Confusingly, Jones then walked back his comments when the Herald sought to confirm them, saying NZ First would honour its coalition agreement but then ‘all bets were off’, meaning the party wasn’t obliged to support the bill beyond the first reading,” Cheng writes.
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Click and Collect
Simeon Brown accused of political points-scoring for releasing a letter to Wellington mayor Tory Whanau just 28 minutes after she received it (The Post, paywalled).
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Sporting snippets
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we are taking sides against a country that is supporting Palestine, we are complicit in genocide thanks to a sycophantic national act nz 1st govt that has the morality of a robbers dog