Brave NZ Government on human rights

The Herald reports:

Foreign Minister Winston Peters hasn’t raised concerns about the deportation of New Zealanders from Australia at a meeting with his transtasman counterpart, despite calling the situation “indefensible” after the previous time they got together.

You’d think if you were going to grandstand in the media calling something indefensible, you’d at least discuss it in person. But no, it was for grandstanding, not action.

Meanwhile, both Payne and Peters faced questions about why their countries had joined 20 others in signing a letter to the UN Human Rights Council calling for Beijing to end its mass detention of ethnic Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.
“Because we believe in human rights, we believe in freedom and we believe in the liberty of personal beliefs and the right to hold them,” Peters said.
United Nations experts believe at least a million of the Uyghur minority group are being held in “re-education” centres in the western region.
China’s Government has described them as training facilities and says it’s trying to stamp out “extremism”.
Reuters reports the letter, signed mainly by European nations and dated July 8, was not read out and was not put up as a resolution, because of fear of backlash from China.
New Zealand has made no formal announcement about the letter.

So NZ signed a letter to the Human Rights Council, but didn’t have anyone read the letter out, put it up as a resolution or even tell anyone they had signed the letter.

Such a brave principled Government.