Keith Locke

Keith Locke was a social justice activist and Green Party New Zealand Member of Parliament.

Keith Locke (1944 – 21 June 2024) wrote prolifically on social and human rights issues, particular after his entrance to parliament where he was a Green Party MP from 1999 to 2011. His blog posts and articles, opinion pieces, submissions and presentations have appeared in multiple blogs, newspapers and other other outlets. The majority are republished here and can be found via the feed, links and search function available on this page.

Featured Article

New Zealand getting too close to NATO

By Keith Locke The following article was published on Newsroom on 23 June 2022 Keith Locke explains why the Prime Minister’s decision to attend the Nato Leaders meeting might make David Lange turn in his grave The invitation for Prime Minister Ardern to attend the Nato Leaders Summit might seem to be an honour and an opportunity, but it has big downsides. Getting too tied up with Nato compromises our non-nuclear status and our independent foreign policy, which has been focused on peacemaking more than warmaking.Nato is a nuclear weapons-based alliance, with three of its members, Britain, France and the United States, possessing such weapons. The alliance has aggressively campaigned against any moves by the international community to find a path to complete nuclear disarmament.Take for example Nato’s hostile stance to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted on July 7, 2017 at a UN-sponsored conference by 122 countries,...

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ABOUT KEITH

Keith Locke was a former Green Party Member of Parliament, serving from 1999 to 2011. He is best known for his human rights and antiwar work not only through the Foreign Affairs portfolio he held through his time as an MP, but also under his other portfolios which included Human Rights, Immigration, Police, Ethnic Affairs and Defence. Keith was an international peace and social justice campaigner. He started this work during the first anti-nuclear, anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid protests of the 1960s.