Surprise, Greens against military planes

Stuff reports:

The Green Party says New Zealand is not truly subscribing to the rules-based order by purchasing new military planes with increased combat capability.

On Monday, Defence Minister Ron Mark announced the Government would buy four Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft from the US Government at a cost of $2.3 billion.

The planes, which have enhanced weapon and submarine-hunting capabilities, will be delivered from 2023, with the cost spread out to 2026, and would replace the fleet of ageing P-3K Orions.

Mark said the P-8s were the only choice, and would strengthen the Government’s Pacific reset.

Seems like a good purchase. We have a big area to look after.

Mark and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have spoken extensively about the growing threat to the global rules-based order. And it seems part of New Zealand’s response was to ensure the NZDF is combat capable, and has interoperability with its traditional allies.

Also sensible.

But Green Party defence spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said New Zealand needed to move away from investing in war industries if it was serious about upholding the international rules-based system.

“We need to move away from following the old world order of the US, UK, Australia and diverse from investing in the war industries and focus on what we can do best, instead,” Ghahraman said.

This is bizarre. Having military capability is not in conflict with a rules-based system.  It is what allows you to enforce one.

UN Security Council resolutions are meaningless, unless they can be enforced.

I also note the rhetoric about moving away from the US, UK and Australia. I disagree. While we certainly should make independent decisions (and we do), it is ridiculous to not recognise the special relationships we have with those countries.