According to Social Development Minister Louise Upton her latest crackdown on the unemployed is just “common sense.” Oh, really. Upston is threatening to reduce or cancel the income of an increasing number of people already living on the breadline – unless they spend more of their scarce money on the transport required to chase a declining number of jobs in the middle of a recession.

This isn’t common sense. It looks more like the latest round of a cruel and gratuitous attack on vulnerable people for the crime of being poor. All year, Treasury has been predicting the rise in unemployment now unfolding, a trend being fuelled by the government’s own cutting of jobs and services. Business failures are up by 27% this year, and more firms are being expected to go to the wall early next year as household spending dries up.

This is the climate in which Upston thinks it makes sense to force more and more people onto the mousewheel of chasing fewer jobs. Apparently, the government thinks the poor will learn a salutary lesson from what – as the government knows beforehand – will be an exercise in futility for most of them.

Beneficiary bashing has always been one of the National Party's Reflex gestures. This time around, it sits alongside the government (b) ensuring that any increase in the minimum wage is below the cost of living (b) reducing the quality of school lunches on which many poor children depend, and (c) scrapping smokefree legislation of disproportionate benefit to low income households etc etc.

Whatever euphemism you use to describe the government’s ongoing war on the poor, this isn’t an exercise in compassionate conservatism.

AUKUStrating our defence.

On the weeknd, Labour figured out that it doesn’t want New Zealand to join Pillar 2 of an AUKUS pact after all. Hmm. This is despite the fact that its then-Defence Minister Andrew Little seemed dead keen on AUKUS when Labour was last in a position of power to make decisions that had consequences.

AUKUS is a nuclear-capable military alliance between the US, UK and Australia aimed at maintaining the West’s military dominance over New Zealand’s biggest trading partner, China. Given Donald Trump’s fixation with asserting US superiority over China economically and militarily, you would think any pact designed to cow China into submission would prosper during Trump’s second term, to a round of applause from MFAT and the defence boffins.

But here’s the thing. As a budding member of Pillar 2, would New Zealand actually be safer inside – or outside – of an AUKUS pact led by Donald Trump? With Trump at the AUKUS helm and China endlessly repeating (verbally at least,) its intention to absorb Taiwan by any means necessary...AUKUS looks more like a provocation than a deterrent.

A war over Taiwan is a genuine threat on the horizon, and China has been looking at the West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for pointers on what the lasting downsides – if any – of annexing Taiwan by force might be. Economically, they would be massive for China, and for the global economy. (Recent studies estimate China’s GDP would shrink by over 16%). On Ukraine, Trump functions as a virtual Russian asset, but in the coming months China would be unwise to treat Trump’s dutiful surrender of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin as a precedent.

In recent years, the US military has been obsessed with 2027 as the date at which China’s military would become capable of a Taiwan invasion. CIA chief William Burns however was at pains in a February 2023 television interview to stress that this expected capability by 2027 was not being treated by the US as the deadline for when an invasion of Taiwan would actually take place.

Still, there is no doubt that the risk of an accidental war over Taiwan has risen with Trump’s re-election. As President, Trump has treated diplomacy as a unilateral zero-sum game in which negotiation and compromise are solely for losers. Therefore, being the President who “lost” Taiwan would not be an option for him, whatever his AUKUS allies thought or said about it. That’s one reason why AUKUS has suddenly become politically problematic here at home. Is New Zealand really prepared to bet that China won’t invade Taiwan while Trump is still in the White House?

Because if China did invade during that time, our membership of AUKUS could see Trump dragging us into World War Three overnight, without us being able to get a word in edgeways. Basically...should we be lining up to join a club where Trump and his zany defence and security minions (e.g. Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard) will be calling all of the important shots?

The AUKUS economic benefits mirage

If we think that joining Pillar Two of AUKUS will deliver New Zealand firms free-of-charge access to all sorts of secret cyber tech advances..that is delusional. The evidence says otherwise. Australia for example, is one of the trio of Pillar 1 core members, and yet look at how its access needs are being treated by the Americans.

Due to security restrictions under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that govern the US export of its weaponry, Australia has been granted access for only about 80% of the necessary technology for the nuclear submarine fleet central to AUKUS. Moreover:

....the size of the excluded technologies list also depends on how it’s measured: It may be 20% by dollar amount, but it’s 30% by the number of total U.S. licenses.

The U.S. State Department’s updated rules on ITAR are under review, and still subject to a public submission process that closed only a fortnight ago. If the Luxon government thinks New Zealand is going to get automatic and privileged access to state-of-the-art cyber technology, it is dreaming. It should be looking instead at the restrictions still faced by an AUKUS Pillar 1 core member willing to spend north of $A350 billion on this project, while also opening its territory to US troops and bases.

That is happening before we get onto the access rules that will pertain to the Pillar 2 advances in AI, hypersonics, underwater drone technology, quantum tech etc. from which the New Zealand public is being told we stand to gain spin-off economic benefits. Yeah, right. Much of the valuable stuff will be either retained as exclusive adjuncts to US defence and security, or it will be under patent to the likes of Raytheon, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, none of which are renowned for sharing.

Obviously, there are also moral issues involved in us signing up to join a nuclear capable, force projection alliance whose submarines will be deployed on maritime routes adjacent to the Chinese mainland. What we choose to call “defence” looks mighty like “aggression” to those on the receiving end.

Also – before signing up to AUKUS – surely we deserve to have a public debate about the wisdom of relying on a military alliance to develop the kind of scientific advances and innovation we need in a wider sense, as a nation. Signing up to AUKUS would risk skewing our centres of scientific research into serving as catalysts for the global arms race.

Besides all of the above...it is also hard to imagine what exactly we would be expected to bring to the AUKUS table. Rocket Lab USA Inc tends to be cited by New Zealand as an example of our relevant know-how. But as its name implies, Rocket Lab USA Inc is now a US firm that is already – pre-AUKUS – delivering military payloads and other stuff into Earth orbit. So much so that it is also now a rival of Donald Trump’s new BFF Elon Musk, and of Musk’s SpaceX operation.

So far in November [2024] Rocket Lab’s shares have more than doubled and have jumped more than fivefold in the last 12 months. Shareholders are excited that this fast-moving company will tap into robust demand to send low-orbit satellites and military hardware into space. The company also makes components that are used by other space companies, a business that now makes up most of its revenue.

Meaning: the US already has Rocket Lab, Rocket Lab doesn’t need AUKUS, and Elon Musk won’t be wanting to give Rocket Lab any further opportunities to prosper.

The “dump AUKUS Pillar 1” option

Is AUKUS the only military option for those intent on spending billions of dollars on “deterring” China ? How many untold billions is it worth spending to stop China from having a presence in the Asia- Pacific region, similar to the one that the US has had there for decades?

Apparently, there are military alternatives. A recent report by the widely respected US Congressional Research Service (CRS) has found that Australia could save billions of dollars by dumping AUKUS Pillar 1 in its current form, and replacing it with missiles, B21 long range bombers, drones and other technology. Keep in mind what the kernel of the AUKUS pact looks like:

Under the AUKUS Pillar 1 plan, US and British nuclear submarines will rotate out of Western Australia from 2027, before Australia buys up to five second-hand Virginia class boats in the 2030s, and then begins constructing a new fleet known as SSN-AUKUS.

Under the CRS plan, that submarine deterrent role in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait etc would be performed solely by the US. Instead of AUKUS Pillar I draining the Aussie defence budget, much of the funds would be diverted into military technologies that could – arguably – be able to deter any outbreak of Chinese expansionism, but at a lower cost. Here’s what the CRS report says:

“An alternative to Pillar 1 as currently structured would be a US-Australia military division of labour under which US SSNs would perform both US and Australian SSN missions while Australia invested in military capabilities for performing non-SSN missions for both Australia and the United States....

Australia, instead of using funds to purchase, build, operate, and maintain its own SSNs, would instead invest those funds in other military capabilities — such as, for example, long-range anti-ship missiles, drones, loitering munitions, B-21 long-range bombers, or other long-range strike aircraft.”

So what is going on here? What the CRS solution would do is (a) ensure America’s advanced submarine technology remains held secure, closer to its chest and (b) reduce the possible shipyard congestion in future, whereby the American Navy’s own submarine building programme might t end up jostling for space, time and trained workers with the submarines ear-marked by AUKUS for Australia.

On other grounds, not everyone is buying into the CRS argument. As David Shoebridge of the Australian Greens told the ABC (link above) this scenario would be more likely to serve US interests, than Australia’s needs:

“This division of power no doubt makes sense from a US perspective with Australia providing them with funds and bases and getting no actual submarines...From an Australian perspective that looks far more like a strategic surrender than a partnership.”

Moreover, Shoebridge claims:

"For the US, the whole AUKUS deal always had at its heart US access to Australian real estate for their submarines, bombers and marines, with any marginal additional Australian capacity being very much secondary."

If the comprehensive “additional Australian capacity” delivered by AUKUS is still “very much secondary” then what on earth is the worth of New Zealand’s contribution - especially in the eyes of an “America First” leader like Trump?

If past experience is anything to go by, it is Canberra who will be wanting us on board AUKUS – all the better to induce us into jointly investing in related defence projects likely to create jobs for Australian workers, in Aussie shipyards.

Perhaps that is our backdrop to AUKUS, Pillar 2. The Luxon government is facing major spending outlays on Defence gear – achieving AUKUS complementarity, new frigates etc. These outlays promise to be wildly unpopular with a New Zealand public still being hammered by austerity cuts to jobs and services, in the midst of tax giveaways to landlords and Big Tobacco.

That could be the prime reason why the government is conjuring up illusory benefits to local firms from Pillar 2 – in order to sweeten the bitter pill of the AUKUS membership fees.

© Scoop Media