Source: Te Kuaka
A leading NZ thinktank and advocacy group has released a detailed blueprint for a different approach to foreign policy, and says it’s time foreign policy was brought “out of the shadows”.
Te Kuaka – a group made up of academics such as Marco de Jong and Arama Rata, and lawyers with expertise in international and constitutional law like Dylan Asafo and Gabriella Brayne – has today released a policy brief, ‘A Foreign Policy Alternative for the 2026 New Zealand Election‘. The group refers to the need to revitalise “an independent, Te Tiriti-based, Pacific-centred, internationalist foreign policy.”
The last year has seen tumultuous developments in world affairs, with Israel’s genocide in Gaza, US aggression in Venezuela, and US and Israel’s initiation of conflict in Iran.
Te Kuaka’s policy brief, released today, says the current government “has radically shifted New Zealand’s longstanding foreign policy traditions”, including by moving NZ away from a principled defence of its independent values and interests towards total, unquestioning support for the actions of the Trump administration.
The brief calls for greater transparency around trade agreements, a War Powers Act to ensure parliamentary authorisation for going to war, shifts in New Zealand’s approach to the Pacific towards non-militarisation, NZ intervention in support of South Africa’s International Court of Justice case against Israel, among other changes.
“How New Zealand acts in the world has always mattered,” says Marco de Jong, member of and spokesperson for Te Kuaka. “And we need our political parties speaking more openly about their plans on how to maintain and strengthen our independent foreign policy.”
The policy brief also calls for New Zealand to take more strident steps in relation to Indigenous self-determination in Kanaky (New Caledonia) and to support a human rights visit to West Papua.
“New Zealand’s slide under this government towards a tightly-aligned, militaristic foreign policy is not inevitable”, adds de Jong. “The coalition government doesn’t have a mandate for this dramatic repositioning, and before the coming election we are calling for greater clarity from political parties about what the public can expect to see from them in relation to New Zealand’s position in the world.”
The policy brief notes that Te Tiriti o Waitangi has not been sufficiently honoured in foreign policy, and also proposes formalising requirements for Māori representation alongside official New Zealand delegations to international forums.
“We are in a rupturing world”, says de Jong. “We need to ensure we’re not unthinkingly caught in the riptide of major powers’ priorities, and that instead we chart our own course, appropriate to our histories and our location in the Pacific.”
Te Kuaka has previously published reports on conflict prevention and peace mediation, New Zealand’s positioning on AUKUS, and civilian casualties and the NZ Defence Force.