This article was published by Spinoff on 22 December 2020
By Keith Locke
The weakness of the royal commission report is that it treats Islamist extremist terrorism and extreme right white nationalist terrorism as different categories, when in fact they are part of the same problem, argues former Green MP Keith...
The following article was published on the Daily Blog on 25 November 2020.
By Keith Locke
It’s good to see New Zealand criticising China for undermining democracy in Hong Kong, but we shouldn’t do it via a Five Eyes statement.
It would be much more effective for New Zealand, which has a...
By Keith Locke
The following article was published in The Daily Blog, 20 October 2020
There has been much discussion about how the Greens should position themselves now they are not needed by Labour to form a government.The proposals range from no formal Labour/Green agreement to the Greens having Ministers in...
The article below appeared on the Daily Blog on 2 September 2020
Most New Zealanders don’t trust Donald Trump. By and large they oppose his “America First” stance, which is making effective cooperation between nations very difficult.Why then are so many people fooled by Trump’s attacks on China’s most...
The Covid-19 crisis is shaking up our thinking in a number of areas, not least on foreign policy.In the 1980s we were excluded from the Anzus alliance for daring to declare New Zealand nuclear-free. Since then we have supposedly had an "independent foreign policy".In practice, our policy would be...
By Keith Locke
Why are we still looking to America first when it comes to our decisions on which countries to engage with, asks former MP Keith Locke.
Britain’s decision to resist American pressure and let Huawei into its 5G network is embarrassing for New Zealand.
Earlier our government had fallen into...
How can New Zealand claim to have an independent foreign policy when it won’t even criticise America’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian leader?
The furthest foreign minister Winston Peters went was to express “strong concern” at the “heightening tensions in Iraq and the region”.
Peters’ statement could also be...
One thing the Greens and NZ First won’t want to repeat is the Alliance experience in coalition with Labour from 1999 to 2002. With Ministers inside the Cabinet, committed to Cabinet solidarity, they had difficulty differentiating from Labour. This frustrated the party’s support base.
When it comes to helping out the victims of war – refugees – the government says it can only afford $25 million a year for an extra 250 refugees, a derisory amount.
From day one the Democratic Party establishment has been trying to count Bernie Sanders out of the presidential nomination race, using every trick in the book. The party leaders have been readily assisted in this by a tame mainstream media.