Terrible instincts

The Herald has a story today about emails released by Winston Peters under the OIA, showing that prime minister Christopher Luxon wanted to go all-in on backing Trump's stupid and illegal war against Iran. A lot of the story and subsequent material is about the subsequent coalition ructions - who is undermining who, and whether the regime will last until the election in November. But what it shows is just how truly terrible Luxon's instincts are, and how politically out of touch he is. American wars have universally turned out to be unjutifiable disasters, and as a result are not popular with New Zealanders - and this one is no exception. Trump's illegal bombing has taken the world from uncomfortable stability, to a global fossil fuels and economic crisis, while killing and maiming thousands of people. And it is about as popular here as dogshit and politicians. And fundie weirdo armageddon-cultist Luxon wanted to - and still wants to - support that?

The first instinct of past New Zealand leaders - Helen Clark, for example - has been to keep us well away from American wars. Its a good rule of thumb. Luxon's abandonment of it shows how terrible his instincts are. And if he's that unthinkingly American, maybe he should go back there?

Climate Change: Fossil government

If we are to avoid even more dangerous levels of climate change, we need to get off fossil fuels. The process is already happening - just look at the ongoing global switch to EVs and solar power, and the messy demise of the NZ gas industry - but we need it to happen faster, and we need our government to actually commit to it. There was an opportunity to do so at the recent climate change COP in Belém, Brazil last year, with a side-agreement on the Transition away from Fossil Fuels. MFAT looked at it, noted that it did not conflict with our policies, and recommended joining. But Shame Jones, the regime's most absurd fossil fuel advocate, vetoed the idea:

An assessment against government priorities found that signing up to the declaration would have a neutral or even positive effect.

While drafting the submission, officials noted there was "an open question about engaging Minister Jones for concurrence, consultation, or information".

The final submission was sent to Jones for consultation.

It was also sent to Trade Minister Todd McClay, but for information only - his input was not sought.

An email sent the next day said Jones had been consulted.

"Minister Jones does not want New Zealand to join the Declaration," a Ministry for Foreign Affairs official informed his colleagues.

So our entire climate change policy is now being driven by a corrupt fossil advocate committed to ignoring the problem for as long as he can (while people drown and burn and are buried by landslides). It's government of the fossils, by the fossils, and for the fossils. And if it stays in place for much longer, it will kill us all. Voting them out a necessary act of self-defence.

No deals with the US

So, Shame Jones is officially trying to sell our country to Donald Trump, by negotiating a secret critical minerals deal behind everyone's back. My immediate reaction - along with a lot of other people's - is "fuck that"! And there are all sorts of good reasons why we should not be pursuing any deals with the US - and the Trump regime in particular - at present.

Firstly, there's the US's present status as a rogue nation. Aotearoa depends on a rules-based international order, but as Canadian prime minister Mark Carney pointed out, the United States has destroyed that order. We should not be rewarding them for doing so. Instead, following Carney's suggestion, we should be working with other like-minded countries to reconfigure the international order around the US. Which means no deals.

Secondly, there's Trump himself. It ought to be obvious to any observer by now that Trump does not regard any "deal" as binding on him, instead viewing them as a form of criminal interview, testing whether his chosen victim will resist escalation or comply. Just look at his various "deals" with Canada: he broke NAFTA to force them to negotiate the USMCA, then broke that by imposing tariffs, then broke the settlement he reached on that with more tariffs, and on and on it goes (Trump is currently threatening tariffs against Canada for making a trade deal with China, and is going to ground half the US domestic air passenger fleet by attacking the Canadian aircraft industry). So there is simply no point to making any "deal" with him, and instead we ought to be refusing to on principle, simply because his word can't be trusted.

And then of course there's the fascism... should we really be supplying critical minerals to a fascist state who will use them to wage war on the world (and on China, our largest trading partner) and oppress its own people?

We should have no fucking part of any of this. Even if you thought the US was once our ally, that situation has clearly changed. The US is now a nakedly predatory power, openly threatening its allies while working with imperialist Russia to enable aggression. I don't think any New Zealander wants that sort of world. And while Trump won't last forever, the underlying dynamics in the US political system which have brought them to this don't seem like they'll change any time soon. We shouldn't be making deals with them under these circumstances. Instead, we should cut them out of our lives as much as possible, and work with like-minded nations to build a new world system which does not depend on them. A regime which meets this situation by seekign deals with the US are simply quislings and traitors.

The enemy of the world

Over the weekend the United States mounted an unprovoked attack on Venezuela, killing a hundred people, and kidnapping its president. Since then, they have threatened further attacks, as well as similar action against Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Iran and Greenland. All of which is illegal under international law, but I think it's pretty clear by now that the US doesn't give a shit about that, or anything other than naked force. What we are looking at here is a rogue empire, using force or threats of force to extort territory, resources, or even just money from the rest of the world. And the world - and in particular the status quo coalition of countries who want peace and quiet - needs to wake up and start treating it as such.

How can the rest of the world respond to such a state? We already know part of the solution, because the US has done it to those it has deemed "rogue" before: comprehensive trade and financial sanctions. Unfortunately, this is difficult when the US is the center of so much, but personal sanctions against regime members and their supporters are eminently possible, and likely to have an impact. The US has done this to ICC judges and officials in an effort to intimidate them into dropping cases against Israel and US troops in Afghanistan; but we can do the same to them. And it will hurt. Trump's a billionaire, he has money and investments all over the world. Ditto Musk, Bezos, Thiel, and the rest of his fascist cabal. We can take it from them. They will scream like Russian oligarchs if they can't access the money they've stashed in their foreign tax havens, or holiday in their usual places. And that in turn means internal pressure on the regime.

Longer term, its pretty clear that the US can no longer be trusted as a responsible member of the international community. Even if the current regime is overthrown and things return to "normal", it might happen again. Better therefore to reduce our dependence on them as much as possible. If we want a peaceful, stable world where we can just get on with our lives without fear of random attack, that world can no longer include the US.

Climate Change: National reneges on Paris

In October 2016 the then-National government under John Key ratified the Paris Agreement, signing up to progressively reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. As part of that we set a formal emissions reduction target of a 30% net reduction (from gross 2005 levels) by 2030. This was later strengthened to a 50% reduction. Throughout this process, successive governments have been clear that these targets are "responsibility targets": domestic reductions alone won't get us there, and so they expect to buy reductions offshore to meet it. But now National has said that actually, no they won't:

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed the Government has no intention to spend on overseas carbon offsets, if New Zealand fails to reduce emissions to the level agreed under the Paris Agreement.

[...]

To date, successive governments have held off accounting for this upcoming cost in their books.

Now, Willis has confirmed there is no plan to change this.

“It is the Government's position that the most important contribution that New Zealand can make to reducing global climate change is reducing our emissions here at home, and we are working to achieve that,” she told reporters after appearing in front of the finance select committee for Scrutiny Week.

“It is also the case that the NDC the previous government set for us was well beyond what was required. ... We don't think New Zealanders ... would thank us for sending billions of dollars offshore to meet that Paris obligation.”

Fact check: Aotearoa's climate target is not "well beyond what was required". It is in fact woefully insufficient, and inconsistent with our (legally binding) obligations to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Willis' false claim marks her as nothing more than a dirty climate change denier, just like the rest of her party.

But the important thing here is that National has effectively announced that it reneging on the Paris agreement. This is a violation not just of the agreement itself, but also of various free trade agreements which reference it and require us to uphold it. Some of those trade partners have already raised concerns; now with the regime officially reneging then that seems likely to - and should - escalate into a threat of trade sanctions. It should also lead to action in the International Court of Justice to force adherence to the agreement, or pay compensation to those harmed by our refusal.

They're also abandoning over 75 years of foreign policy. Since 1945. Aotearoa has supported the "rules-based international order", reasoning that as a small country, a world where countries keep their agreements is better than one where they do not. National is pissing on that. Its not a very sensible thing to do, and it surrenders any right to whine when bigger countries do it to us. But National isn't concerned about any of that. They're driven by an ideology of climate change denial, fiscal short-termism, and pure ratfuckery, a desire to slag off the opposition for saying "we will meet our international obligations".

This is not the action of a credible, responsible governing party. Its is the action of a dogshit vandal regime, desperate to smash as much stuff and do as much damage as they can before they are thrown out of power. The quicker we vote these scum out, the better.

Shameful and cowardly

That is the only way to describe the regime's refusal today to recognise Palestine. Faced with a clear moral test - an illegal occupation and an ongoing genocide - they blew it. They'd rather toady to fascists and génocidaires than do the right thing.

The message is clear: if we want a government which will (eventually) follow the world and do the right thing, we need regime change. Bring on the election, so we can vote these genocidal chickenshits out.

Still wibbling

On Monday, Australia, Canada, and the UK finally recognised Palestine. Today, France followed suit. Meanwhile, New Zealand is still wibbling:

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has refused to be drawn over whether New Zealand will join nations taking steps to formally recognised a Palestinian state.

[...]

Peters said there were many days to go, and he planned to spend those days "finding out all the facts".

"We've been waiting 80 long years for an answer here, and a few days finding out all the facts will not be wasted."

Asked what information he was searching for while in New York this week, Peters said "we're here to listen, hear all the arguments, all the facts as best known, and when we have them, we will finalise our decision".

I assume the "facts" he is waiting to hear are his marching orders from the fascist regime in Washington. Because he is clearly not interested in what is happening on the ground in Gaza - genocide, a crime against humanity - or in the views of fellow UN member-states, 80% of whom recognise Palestine. Let alone those of New Zealanders, 40% of whom support immediate recognition (vs 22% who oppose it).

Once upon a time, Aotearoa stood up for what was right on the international stage. This regime clearly will not. If we want a government which reflects our values, they have to go.

(Of course, recognition is only the first step. We need full sanctions and a trade-ban on Israel, an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for genocide and war crimes, and an international effort to identify, locate, and arrest them).

Israel is commiting genocide in Gaza

Its official: a UN independent international commission of inquiry has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza:

The COI, set up by the UN in 2021 and staffed by three independent experts, cited the killing of civilians and children in a “scorched-earth military strategy”, starvation and deaths caused by restrictions on food and medicines, mistreatment of detainees, forced displacement and the physical devastation of much of the territory to support its finding.

The COI also accused Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister who has been accused of war crimes by the international criminal court, and other senior Israeli leaders of incitement of genocide, and said there was clear evidence of their genocidal intent, a key legal requirement.

“The commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent … The commission also concludes … that genocidal intent was the only reasonably inference that can be drawn from the totality of the evidence,” Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, told reporters.

As they point out, all states have an obligation under international law to use all means reasonably available to them to stop genocide. We're a small country on the other side of the world, but the very least we can do would seem to be sanctioning them like we sanction Russia, cutting off the hundreds of millions in trade which genocide-enablers are currently profiting from, supporting an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible, and a global intelligence and law enforcement effort to identify, locate, arrest, and deliver them for trial. Plus of course recognising Palestine.

But realistically, Rimmer - who at this stage is just a local agent for far-right foreigners - isn't going to permit any of this. And while he's nominally only deputy prime minister, Luxon's utter spinelessness has left him de facto in charge of our government. So if we want justice for Gaza, we're going to have to throw these bums out to get it.

Climate Change: National cheats the world

Back in 2022, Aotearoa joined the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance, a group of countries dedicated to fighting climate change by phasing out fossil fuels. Because our oil and gas ban was only partial, affecting only new offshore exploration, with no phase-out date for existing permits, we were only an associate member. But it was an important symbol of our intent and direction of travel, something to build on for the future.

But now, National has cheated our partners and withdrawn from the alliance:

Christopher Luxon’s Government pulling out of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance is just the latest sign they care little for the climate crisis or cost of living it’ll exacerbate, says the Green Party.

[...]

“Yesterday, we revealed that it took the Government just six months to breach a trade agreement they themselves signed up to with a $200 million handout to the fossil fuel industry. Today, we wake up to news that they are pulling our country out of an alliance to support nations’ transition away from dependence on fossil fuels.

...which is I guess a signal of their intent: to destroy the climate and make the earth uninhabitable for us and our descendents.

The good news is that what this regime can do, the next government can undo. And this fact is already deterring the polluters the regime hopes to attract. The problem is that the damage National does to our international reputation with its climate denial and grovelling to polluting sunset industries may be hard to undo.

More colonial bullying

Back in February the Cook Islands - a former New Zealand colony which is now "self-governing in free association with New Zealand" - signed a strategic partnership agreement with China. Winston Peters was upset, feeling that he should have been consulted about such a move, and jerked the colonial chain. And now he's jerking it harder, cutting off support funding for the Cook Islands government:

New Zealand has paused its core sector support funding for the Cook Islands after its government signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year, Winston Peters' office says.

The Foreign Minister on Thursday confirmed the message was sent to the Cook Islands government "in its finality" on 4 June

However, it only become public on Thursday (19 June) after media reports in the Cook Islands.

While its easy to see this as Winston sabotaging Luxon (who is in China ATM), I think Peters' outdated world view is the real problem here. Like his protégé Shane Jones, Peters is a fossil politician with a fossilised worldview. Born during WWII, his model of how our society and politics should work is frozen sometime in the 1950s and 1960s - when New Zealand "had the best race relations in the world" (Māori were seen and not heard), was a loyal vassal of Britain and the US, and communism existed outside of the imaginations of sad far-right weirdos. More relevantly, the Cook Islands were still a colony. While they became self-governing in 1965, the relationship was very much in favour of New Zealand, which exercised political control through its high commissioner, judicial control through New Zealand judges, and even sent New Zealand police to enforce the rulings of said judges when premier Albert Henry was found to have committed election fraud in 1978 (shortly before Winston first entered parliament after an electoral petition in 1979).

But things have evolved a long way since then. The Cook Islands are now basically an independent country, with diplomatic relations with over 60 other nations. Even MFAT admits that it "conducts its own affairs", and that New Zealand's role is limited to "respond[ing] to requests for assistance with foreign affairs, disasters and defence". And in that context, Peters' attitude looks like a very ugly colonial throwback, the sort of international bullying modern Aotearoa is meant to oppose. It also seems unlikely to actually help things. Instead, it sets a clear incentive for the Cook Islands to seek that funding from China instead. And if that comes with strings attached which Peters doesn't like, well, he will have no-one to blame but himself.

Doing less than the bare minimum

Last night, after nearly two years of genocide in Gaza, the New Zealand government finally began to do the right thing, and sanctioned two Israeli cabinet ministers for promoting genocide. Which is a good first step, but its not enough. Firstly, the sanctions are just a travel ban, saying "you can't come here", which is pretty whoop-di-shit as far as sanctions go. Secondly, wanted international criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant are not sanctioned - and nor is the state of Israel itself. In other words, the New Zealand government is still doing as little as possible.

This isn't good enough. Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and an illegal occupation of the West bank, in flagrant violation of international law. We should be treating it like we treat Russia, with a full trade and investment ban and restrictions on financial dealings. IDF members should be banned from travelling here. Israeli officials complicit in or with political responsibility for these crimes should similarly be subject to asset seizures, travel bans, and trading restrictions, just like Putin and his cronies. And those sanctions should stay in place until the genocide and occupation stops, reparations (such as they can be) are made, seized land is returned, and everyone responsible is sent to The Hague to face justice before international courts. That seems like the absolute minimum we should be doing. Instead, though inaction, our government is sending a clear message that it approves of genocide. And that is not acceptable.

Climate Change: Denying our obligations

In 2016, the then-National government signed the Paris Agreement, committing Aotearoa to a 30 (later 50) percent reduction in emissions by 2030. But since then, successive governments have failed to do enough to meet the target, leaving us with a huge shortfall, currently estimated at 84 million tons. The target is legally binding, and Aotearoa is expected to make up that shortfall using Paris' international cooperation mechanisms. But despite that clear international commitment, the government is refusing to publicly say whether it will meet our obligations. Instead, Ministers have repeatedly talked openly about cheating on the deal.

RNZ has a piece today about the problems this is causing. The lead is potential trade problems, as both the EU and UK FTAs include commitments to meet our Paris obligations (so: we can expect trade sanctions, likely targetted at the polluting dairy industry, if we don't). But its also affecting domestic policy. Currently this is predicated on the government meeting its obligations. But if it does not, then He Pou a Rangi will have to recommend stronger action, as they are legally required to consider "New Zealand’s relevant obligations under international agreements" as well as our (weaker) domestic targets:

The commission needed to clarify whether offshore purchases were still on the table, because otherwise it would need to change its recommendations on the level of carbon cuts the government should make here using the Emission Trading Scheme, in order to remain compliant.

The commission noted that making all the cuts here would be "costly and disruptive" and also not possible using only the country's main climate tool of the Emissions Trading Scheme, which covers less than half the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

Basically, if the government isn't going to use international cooperation, then the Paris 2030 target becomes a default domestic 2030 target, and He Pou a Rangi will be legally obliged to recommend radical cuts to meet it. Of course, National could remove that obligation, but that sort of overt repudiation would completely end their game of pretending to care while doing nothing, alienating kiwi voters and triggering those international trade sanctions.

RNZ also talks about Treasury not knowing whether to recognise the cost of meeting Paris - estimated at up to $24 billion - as a liability on the government's books. Which is something that would both focus the mind and act as a clear financial incentive for emissions reduction policies, effectively setting a government carbon price of $285/ton for policies to be measured against. But it would also blow all future surplus projections out of the water, which is another reason why Ministers really want to talk up uncertainty and won't commit. And given what they did to pay equity to remove a liability half that size, uncertainty is probably the lesser of two evils at the moment.

But whether the government recognises that obligation or not, we will be paying regardless - if not under the international cooperation mechanism, then in cleaning up after floods and drought and fires and cyclones, plus the social costs of insurance retreat and sea-level rise. The Paris Agreement is meant to reduce those long-term costs. Refusing to meet it is just another example of the long-term problem of New Zealand governments: taking the cheap, short-term option, and refusing to invest for the future.

A "secret" that wasn't

Back in 2018, Aotearoa was in the midst of the Operation Burnham inquiry. During this, it emerged that key evidence was subject to a US veto under an obscure and secret treaty. Part of the Five Eyes arrangement, this treaty was referred to by a number of different names in different documents, but seemed to be the "Security of Information Agreement between the New Zealand Minister of Defence and the United States Secretary of Defense of September 2 1952", with amending exchanges of notes in November 1961 and in 1982.

I was curious about this treaty and especially about its impact on the handling of OIA requests, so I asked MFAT for a copy. They refused, claiming it was a) secret; and b) American, and therefore couldn't be released. So I went to the Ombudsman, pointing out that the equivalent treaties for all other Five Eyes had been released and were likely to be substantially similar (so it wasn't really secret after all), and that if MFAT wanted to hide behind the Americans, it should at least have to actually ask them if they objected to release. The Ombudsman agreed on the latter point at least, and so MFAT agreed to reconsider its decision and ask the US. And then they just... didn't. back to the Ombudsman, and MFAT agreed that it would make its own assessment of the treaty and consult the US about that, and released a summary. back to the Ombudsman for a full-on challenge to the idea that this is secret or foreign in any way, and MFAT agreed to formally talk to the US to gain US declassification. And then they just... didn't (again). And its currently before the Ombudsman again, with more MFAT promises to talk to the US.

So you can imagine how pissed off I am to find out that a key part of the information I requested - the 1961 exchange of notes - was declassified and released by the US State Department in January 2018, before I even made my request, and that MFAT has simply been dicking me around for seven years. You can read the full thing here, thanks to the Unredacted Five Eyes archive.

As for what it says, it echoes the other, similar (and public) agreements that we already knew about. Which invites the question: why the secrecy? What is the supposed harm in release here? What was the point of MFAT's "consultation" if it didn't result in them learning that this had already been declassified? And why is the New Zealand government still resisting transparency after all these years?

The ideology of grovelling to Trump

Yesterday the Trump regime in America began a global trade war, imposing punitive tariffs in an effort to extort political and economic concessions from other countries and US companies and constituencies. Trump's tariffs will make kiwis nearly a billion dollars poorer every year, but Luxon has decided to do nothing in response.

Part of this is NeoLiberal ideology, which holds that tariffs are always bad and always make people worse off. In the case of Aotearoa, this simply isn't true - modelling published by the University of Auckland's Niven Winchester shows that Aotearoa would be $400 a year per household better off (plus the non-monetary benefit of sticking it to America) by joining global retaliation than by grovelling to US bullying and doing nothing. And of course, there are other, non-tariff ways to retaliate: finally imposing revenue taxes on US dotcoms operating here; personal sanctions against members of the US regime and their oligarch supporters similar to those we impose on Russia; repealing US-imposed IP laws.

But there's another ideological basis for the government's refusal to respond, and that is that National, ACT, and NZ First are all conservative parties. And conservatives are ultimately about all traditional hierarchies: men over women, whites over non-whites, straights over queers, parents over children, rich over poor, the strong over the weak. But there's another traditional hierarchy they're also in favour of: big countries over small ones. The US (originally the UK) over us. Which is why they get involved in so many US wars, and why they're too chicken to stand up to Trump: because they see Aotearoa's natural role as one of subservience to a foreign overlord.

(There are ugly words used to describe political leaders who promote the interests of foreign powers over those of their own country, and they all seem completely applicable here.)

These are not kiwi values. And on foreign policy, they're also not aligned in any way with our interests as kiwis. Luxon's refusal to stand up for kiwis against the Trump regime is a real betrayal. And we should hold him accountable for it at the next election.

Will Labour take on the oligarchs?

David Parker gave a big foreign policy speech this morning, reiterating the party's support for an independent (rather than boot-licking) foreign policy. Most of which was pretty orthodox - international law good, war bad, trade good, not interested in AUKUS, and wanting a demilitarised South Pacific (an area which presumably excludes Australia). But at the end, Parker strayed off foreign policy to talk about the world's big problems. And he identified two: gross inequality, and techbro oligarchs spreading misinformation:

The scourge of irresponsible social media, megalomaniacal tax avoiding tech barons, and irresponsible internet service providers is on my list of the important.

I have a view that we in the west have made a fundamental error in providing what is in effect an exclusion of liability for third party content.

He's not just talking about classic "misinformation" (whether state driven or not), but also defamation, threats, scams, and every other online evil. The current exclusion of liability means internet platforms face little incentive to police this (and every incentive to push them using their algorithms where it boosts "engagement"). Parker's solution is to remove that exclusion, make platforms liable, and "[l]eave it to the Courts to work out the balance between freedom of expression and the duty not to sell a harmful product."

Parker points out that we can use liability limits and safe harbours to encourage platforms to take active steps to remove harmful content. We already do this under the Films, Videos, and Publications Act to encourage platforms to remove objectionable content, and under the Harmful Digital Communications Act to encourage them to deal with complaints about harmful content. We could use similar means for scams.

All of this seems perfectly reasonable. Newspapers are liable, through the courts, Media Council, and Advertising Standards Authority, for what they choose to publish or allow to be published. There seems to be no reason why Facebook, YouTube, or XChan should be immune. Especially when they are making what are effectively editorial choices through their algorithms and moderation policies to highlight or bury, allow or deny certain content. Unlike the postal service or the phone company (which is where the exclusion originated), they're not just a dumb pipe. Treating them as one is causing definite harm, and its time the government put a stop to it.

...and while they're at it, they should put a stop to their systematic tax-cheating and lawlessness as well.

How to fight back against Trump's tariffs

In the US, the Trump regime is busy imposing tariffs on its neighbours and allies, then revoking them, then reimposing them, permanently poisoning relations with Canada and Mexico. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on agricultural goods, which will affect Aotearoa's exports. National's response? To grovel for an exemption, on the basis of our past good relations. As for how successful that will be, Australia has adopted a similar approach to Trump's threats to impose universal tariffs on imported aluminium and steel. And the Trump regime has told them to fuck off. Being a long-standing US ally counts for nothing. So if they're going to impose tariffs on Australia, they are absolutely going to impose them on Aotearoa.

So the question is what National is going to do about it. Beg some more? But Trump responds to weakness by doubling down on oppression. Canada and Ukraine show that the way to get policy change from the US regime is to stand up to them and force it. As for how we could do that, counter-tariffs would just disrupt supply chains and raise the cost of living here. As a small country without a lot of leverage, we need to be smart.

Fortunately, there are some smart ideas lying around. America's economic power is currently built on fascist oligarchic techbros, who are also directly backing Trump's regime. And tech (and SF) writer Cory Doctorow has suggested that countries target them directly, by repealing the US imposed IP laws which underpin their wealth and power and allow them to fuck over their customers:

Governments around the world signed up to protect giant American companies from small domestic competitors (from local app stores – for phones, games consoles, and IoT gadgets – to local printer cartridge remanufacturers) on the promise of tariff-free access to US markets. With Trump imposing tariffs will-ye or nill-ye on America's trading partners large and small, there is no reason to go on delivering rents to US Big Tech.

The first country or bloc (hi there, EU!) to do this will have a giant first-mover advantage, and could become a global export powerhouse, dominating the lucrative markets for tools that strike at the highest-margin lines of business of the most profitable companies in the history of the human race. Like Jeff Bezos told the publishers: "your margin is my opportunity"

[...]

It's time for a global race to the top – for countries to compete with one another to see who will capture US Big Tech's margins the fastest and most aggressively. Not only will this make things cheaper for everyone else in the world – it'll also make things cheaper for Americans, because once there is a global, profitable trade in software that jailbreaks your Big Tech devices and services, it will surely leak across the US border. Canada doesn't have to confine itself to selling reasonably priced pharmaceuticals to beleaguered Americans – it can also set up a brisk trade in the tools of technological self-determination and liberation from Big Tech bondage.

Doctorow was talking about Canada, but Aotearoa also has such laws. Section 226C of the Copyright Act criminalises circumventing "technological protection measures", or publishing information which shows people how to do it themselves. In other words, it makes jailbreaking your devices, or blocking techbro surveilance or advertising, or telling people how to do it, a crime. There's an exception to enable lawful use - which is why we all have region-free blueray players - but that doesn't cover protecting your privacy, or using your hardware in an unapproved way, or letting you fix your own stuff. Repealing those sections would let us do all those things, and create a new export industry for jailbreaking Big Tech.

Unfortunately, due to US influence, we have similar obligations in FTAs with other countries. So any tariff-response repeal would need to target the US directly. The best way of doing this would be a simple amendment to the Copyright Act, inserting a section saying that sections 226 to 226E do not apply to technological protection measures applied by US-controlled companies. The definition of "US controlled" would need to cover the various money laundering schemes used by the tech monopolies to dodge taxes, but I think its within the wit of our drafters to do so. And that should give us open season on US techbro bullshit, while complying with our obligations to everyone else.

The question is whether the government will have the courage to do this, or whether they will accept bullying by America and let Trump's techbros continue to pillage us and invade our privacy.

United States of betrayal II

Like everyone else outside Russia, I watched Saturday morning's shitshow between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in horror. Sure, the US had already thrown Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's theft of land - but there's a difference between that, and berating someone in front of the world for refusing to surrender to a genocidal invader. With this, the Trump regime - and the US Republican Party - has made it crystal clear which side it is on. And it is not the side of democracy and human rights.

Fortunately, Europe seems to be stepping up. And they've also got the message - also sent last month, but not really believed because it was a reversal of 80 years of policy - that the US will not defend them either. And that even if there is regime change in the US, no future US regime can be trusted ever again on anything. And now they've got that message, they can move forward on building a European defence alliance serving European priorities, rather than just being an adjunct of the US. Which almost certainly means less European involvement in American imperial wars in future (great for Europe, bad for the USA, which will have to do all its own dying. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind).

It should also be focusing minds here. Because if the US won't defend Europe, it sure as shit won't lift a finger for Aotearoa (assuming they can even find us on a map). The AUKUS partnership they are trying to tempt us into is worthless. In fact, given their explicit support for tyrannical regimes and of global corruption, we should be regarding them as an enemy, not a friend. And we should be withdrawing from the Five Eyes, rather than continuing to feed intelligence to a corrupt and hostile threat to global peace.

Meanwhile, the US is now openly threatening to withdraw from the UN. Which is terrible: the withdrawl of fascist states from the League of Nations was one of the reasons for its failure to prevent the Second World War. OTOH, if they're going to do it, we can't do anything about it, and at least there's a silver lining. Because the UN has a veto problem, and one of the major impediments to fixing it is... the US veto. If they leave, then it is at least an opportunity to fix that, and the world should refuse to let the US back in unless they accept it.

Colonialism towards the Cook Islands

Last week, 1 News broke the news of a major diplomatic rift between New Zealand and the Cook Islands, over the latter's plans to sign a "comprehensive strategic partnership agreement". Foreign Minister Winston Peters felt that he should have been consulted. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown disagreed. So who's right?

Probably not Winston. Because while New Zealand explicitly had responsibility for "the external affairs and defence of the Cook Islands" at independence (and still does in New Zealand law), the situation has evolved. Over the past 60 years the Cook islands has increasingly been conducting its own foreign policy, joining various international bodies, and having bilateral diplomatic relations with over 60 other countries. New Zealand publicly recognises this fact, with MFAT saying "the Cook Islands conducts its own affairs", but that "New Zealand has a constitutional responsibility to respond to requests for assistance with foreign affairs, disasters and defence". In other words: the Cook Islands are their own country, they do their own thing, but as close friends (and former colonisers with ongoing obligations towards our victims) we have to help if asked.

In this case, they pretty obviously don't want our help. So New Zealand should just butt out. Or maybe try talking, rather than threatening. Because as with Kiribati, Winston's crude jerking of the colonial leash seems unlikely to make friends, and will likely be felt and remembered in the Cook Islands for a very long time. Especially when it is accompanied by the New Zealand media openly asking questions like "should New Zealand invade the Cook Islands?" - which seems to be an explicit invitation for the Cooks to seek the protection of a more powerful state like China.

Meanwhile, this has also highlighted another issue: because the New Zealand government is at this very moment in the process of passing a law which would allow them to prosecute any Cook Islands minister or official who made foreign policy decisions New Zealand doesn't like. The Crimes (Countering Foreign Interference) Amendment Bill creates a new criminal offence of improper conduct for or on behalf of foreign power, with extraterritorial jurisdiction, so that it applies to New Zealand citizens anywhere in the world. All Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens, so it automatically applies to them. As for the criminal offence, China is a "foreign power", signing an agreement "in collaboration with... or agreement of" them is the very definition of "by and on behalf of", not telling MFAT about it meets the test to be "covert" or "deceptive", and thus "improper", and the government very clearly thinks it compromises the "protected new Zealand interests" of the security or defence and international relations of New Zealand. And while New Zealand diplomats and officials have an exemption for "the lawful performance of [their] functions or duties as an employee, contractor, authorised representative, or agent of" the NZ government, there's no such exemption for Cook Islands officials performing their functions in representing their country (likely due to colonial myopia: the metropole just doesn't think about its former colonies).

The Cook Islands Prime Minister should not face criminal charges on New Zealand for doing his job in a way that the New Zealand government does not like. And if the New Zealand government thinks that that is appropriate, then I think that that is a very ugly piece of colonialism, which can only further undermine the relationship between our two countries.

A disrespectful foreign policy

The first item I remember on RNZ news this morning was that Winston is threatening to cut all aid to Kiribati because they wouldn't meet with him. Of course, there's more to the story than that - Kiribati's president had a pre-planned and significant historical event - but clearly Winston thinks that he should drop everything to give him his vital "I visited every Pacific country" photo op. Meanwhile, Judith Collins makes the colonialism and white supremacy even more explicit when she says "we can't have a disrespectful relationship". Quite. But who's disrespecting who here?

Which also makes me think of yesterday's international mess over Trump threatening Colombia (a friendly nation and an American ally, which had asked that its people be treated respectfully when being deported, and was threatened with tarriffs and sanctions in response). There was some commentary on BlueSky from @Pwnallthethings about how such spats tend to have uncertain and long-term diplomatic consequences, and how they are felt and remembered very differently in the metropole than in the small nations they are bullying (the obvious local examples of this are how we kiwis still remember American bullying over nuclear ships, and French terrorism against Greenpeace, and this still influences our relationships with both countries).

To bring it back to Kiribati: regardless of whether aid is ultimately cut or not, the fact Winston made this threat, over something so small, will likely be felt and remembered there for a very long time. Winston's petty tantrum may have poisoned our relations with Kiribati for a decade, and (since Judith Collins seems to care) may help push them closer to China. Whoops. Maybe we shouldn't have a thin-skinned petty old colonialist with an outsized sense of victimhood running our foreign policy?

Open Government: The joke ends

Correction: This story is fortunately incorrect. While Te Kawa Mataaho repeatedly advised the government to quit the OGP, Ministers rejected the idea, and it never went to cabinet. For some reason, this fact was not mentioned in the OIA response the post was based on. Its one of those cases where I'm glad to be wrong, and hopefully the government will now commit to using the OGP to push our public service for real change.

The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent Reporting Mechanism, to ensure they do what they promise and that it has the effects they want.

New Zealand joined the OGP in 2013. We were a late joiner, and from the start it was treated as a PR scam - "we're good at open government, and this is a free headline, hur hur hur". And this showed: its first "action plan" was developed internally with a mockery of consultation and consisted entirely of lazy, business-as-usual goals which the government was doing anyway. And from the outset, it was criticised heavily by civil society groups and the OGP's Independent Reporting Mechanism. Fast-forward a decade, and we're now on our fourth action plan. Over the last four action plans the government has done sweet fuck all, eschewing real change (like beneficial ownership registers, or rewriting the OIA, or requiring real participation in policymaking) in favour of business-as-usual and meaningless "reviews" which are then thrown in the bin. While they've started to do a better pretence of "consultation", there's no real effort at co-creation, priorities are all set by government, for government, and nothing has really changed. Which is why major civil society groups have given up entirely on the process (I gave up after 2016). Our participation was simply a bad joke.

So I'm not entirely surprised to see today that the government has sought advice on withdrawing from the OGP. It hasn't bought them the benefit they wanted (positive headlines), and instead just gets them criticism for failing to meet even the low targets they set themselves. At least by withdrawing they're being honest about their lack of commitment to OGP values, and their preference for the classic Tory values of secrecy, unaccountability, and democratic isolation. (Oh, and naturally they kep the whole idea secret, until it was exposed by an OIA request).

And yet, its disappointing. By requiring formal consideration of open government issues every two years, the OGP could have driven real change in Aotearoa. Instead, the timidity and resistance of officials and a lack of commitment from Ministers buried it, and destroyed any goodwill from civil society for future efforts.

MFAT thinks the risks of OGP withdrawal "can be appropriately managed". I guess its the job of civil society groups now to make those costs as high and severe as possible, to remind the government that it shouldn't cheat wither the international community or the public on transparency.