HomePublicationsThe Spinoff

The Spinoff

[kl_archive_category_drill_block]

New Zealand should never have joined the war in Afghanistan

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,...

NZ shouldn’t be caught up in the US game over Huawei

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...

New Zealand’s response to the Soleimani assassination is shamefully timid

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...

A democratic giant of Tonga – a tribute

Akilisi Pohiva died on September 12, 2019. This tribute was originally published in The Spinoff. Tongan prime minister ’Akilisi Pohiva will be mainly remembered as the country’s leading democrat. For four decades he campaigned to reduce the powers of the Tongan King...

Why on earth is NZ sending a plane into the Kim-and-Trump tinderbox?

Winston Peters says the Orion is to implement UN sanctions, but that’s only half the story, writes former Green MP Keith Locke We all know the erratic nature of Donald Trump’s policy towards North Korea. One moment he’s threatening a...

Splashing $2.3 billion on aircraft erodes NZ’s independent foreign policy

The purchase of four surveillance planes signals an even closer military alignment with the United States, and the reflects badly on our non-aligned status, writes former Green Party defence spokesperson Keith Locke. It was disappointing to see a Labour-led government...