The protests at Parliament showed the social cohesion isn't as secure as it once was. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The protests at Parliament showed the social cohesion isn't as secure as it once was. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The last time tensions in the world were this high was during the Cold War – and New Zealand can no longer rely on its geographic isolation for security.
US-China tensions, Russian threats, extremism and the danger of cyber warfare are all simmering in the background while politicians also contendwith complex local problems.
Speaking to The Front Page podcast off the back of co-editing a new book called State of Threat: The challenges to Aotearoa New Zealand’s national security, Professor William Hoverd – the director at Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security – says the country now faces new internal and external threats.
This was perhaps captured in recent years during the protest at Parliament, in which a large group of New Zealanders took their frustrations to the doorstep of the country’s Government.
“The front of our book has an amazing photo of police facing protesters outside Kate Sheppard Place, and this frames a number of tense questions for us,” says Hoverd.
“We’ve seen the national security sector focus on social cohesion… And why is that? It’s because they’re thinking about this tension that happens when legitimate protest, which is something we have a long successful tradition of in New Zealand, becomes extreme. And then there’s the worry that this extremism becomes violent. And that’s what we saw happen in Wellington.”
State of Threat sheds light on the challenges facing New Zealand's national security. Photo / Massey University Press
The problem is that this extremism bubbling under the surface has the potential to motivate some incredibly heinous acts, as was seen during the Christchurch Mosque terrorist attack.
“A question that came out of the Christchurch Mosque attack was ‘Did our national security system fail?’ given it failed to pick up an attacker who was able to do so much harm to the community.
In response to that attack, the Royal Commission of Inquiry was engaged and came up with a series of 20-something recommendations that the Labour Government accepted in principle and has been acting on.”
Whether the Government has gone far enough is up for debate, but Hoverd says there has been a real effort to get our counter-terrorism strategy right.
But the threats to New Zealand don’t only come from within. Deidre Ann McDonald, a teaching fellow who co-edited State of Threat, tells The Front Page that our distance from other countries isn’t as secure a defence as it once was.
“It depends on what we’re talking about that we want to secure and what’s actually being secured,” she says.
“If you’re thinking about geopolitical security in here, I’m really thinking about the Pacific region. But you also have economic security given our reliance on supply chains and trade. And then there’s also environmental security, where we’re talking about pests and diseases entering the country through the necessary connections with other countries.”
All these threats have made geographical distance less protective than it once was.
Beyond this, there’s also the growing threat of cyberwarfare to knock out key communications infrastructure across the country or expose sensitive data of New Zealand citizens.
“What we know is that significant Government and non-government sectors in New Zealand have been attacked,” says Hoverd.
“We’ve had the NZX trade exchange attacked and we’ve had the Waikato DHB being shut down and their information being stolen. The government is taking cybersecurity seriously, but it’s just not clear what the capacity is to keep us safe.”
So what steps are we taking to enhance our national security? And what role can Aotearoa play in helping to make the rest of the world safer?
Listen to the full episode of The Front Page podcast for an in-depth discussion on these issues and more.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. It is presented by Damien Venuto, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in business reporting who joined the Herald in 2017.
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