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,...
This article was published in the Daily Blog on 1 April 2022
Every now and again there’s a scare story about China trying to establish a military base in the South Pacific.In 2018 it was Vanuatu’s turn. Australia’s Fairfax...
The following article was first published in the Daily Blog on 20 September 2021
There are multiple reasons for nuclear-free New Zealanders to be upset about Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.Much of the commentary has focused on the exclusion...
By Keith Locke
The following article was published in the Daily Blog on 4 September 2021
Our government has understandably been preoccupied with helping refugees leave Afghanistan. But now the focus should shift to emergency aid for Afghanistan itself.UN Secretary-General...
This article was first published in the Spinoff on 18 August 2021.
I argued 20 years ago that sending troops would only help the Taliban. And so it has proved, writes former Green MP Keith Locke.
After the fall of Kabul,...
I'm belatedly adding to my website a photo of me being invested as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit "for services to human rights advocacy" by the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy on 20 April 2021. ...
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...