Independence is not neutrality

Newshub reports:

Hipkins has also stressed while New Zealand may have an independent foreign policy, “independent does not mean neutral”.

Hipkins told a crowd of diplomats, business people and officials at an event at Parliament it was “humbling” to recently meet Ukrainian civilians being trained by the New Zealand Defence Force in the United Kingdom.

He said that had “strengthened my resolve” in relation to providing support to Ukraine “in order to defeat Russia” and also “the absolute necessity to avoid armed conflict where we can”.

There are many policy areas where I disagree with the current Government, but in foreign policy I think Ardern and Hipkins have done a pretty good job in changing our foreign policy so that we clearly stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and have moved closer to like minded countries in NATO.

We are not neutral when it comes the the invasion of Ukraine. We independently decided not to be neutral and to back the democratic country against the authoritarian invader.