Ukraine Crisis: MPs from all parties want peace, but divisions remain over method

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks as he meets with New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta at the State Department in Washington last year. Photo / Pool.

With many countries, including the United States, predicting war in the Ukraine could be just days away, all parties in Parliament are fairly united on the fact that New Zealand should back international efforts for a peaceful, deescalated solution.

However, New Zealand's response to the crisis touches upon political issues that are contested by domestic politics, like the extent to which the Government's response should be guided by its participation in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance, and whether New Zealand should pass legislation to give the Government the ability to sanction countries without having to rely on the dysfunctional United Nations process.

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has three key outcomes New Zealand would like to see.

First, New Zealand supports "Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity" - in other words, New Zealand does not back any carving up of Ukraine or any outcome that could mean the country loses sovereignty over parts of its territory, as can be seen in breakaway regions of east Ukraine.

Second, Mahuta said New Zealand supports "international efforts to resolve the crisis diplomatically".

"We hope the ongoing discussions between the US, Russia, Ukraine and other partners will bring about an urgent de-escalation of tensions," Mahuta said.

Finally, Mahuta said New Zealand calls on "Russia to act in a manner consistent with international law, and to take immediate steps to reduce tensions and the risk of a severe miscalculation".

This strategy is broadly backed by all parties in Parliament. National leader Christopher Luxon said he supported calls for de-escalation on the part of Russia, which has marshalled forces on the Russian border.

However Luxon said New Zealand should be able to act unilaterally to apply sanctions to Russia should the Government see the need. Currently, New Zealand can only apply sanctions through a process governed by the United Nations.

The United Nations' powerful security council gives the United States, the UK, France, Russia, and China the ability to veto any attempt to apply sanctions. In this particular example, the UN sanctions process is somewhat redundant, given Russia is likely to block any attempt to sanction itself.

National wants to fix this by passing autonomous sanctions legislation, which would allow the Government to sanction countries without the imprimatur of the UN.

In government, National drew up a bill to do just that. It languished at the bottom of the order paper for the first term of the current Government, never making it to first reading. The Government then ditched the bill entirely.

When National's foreign affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee successfully had a version of that bill drawn from the member's ballot, Labour voted it down, backed by votes from the Greens and Te Paati Māori.

"A lot of our partners have the ability to make unilateral sanctions against Russia," Luxon said.

"The Government voted down Gerry Brownlee's autonomous sanctions bill - the point of that was to give New Zealand some tools that it could use with other countries around sanctions.

National foreign affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee wants an autonomous sanctions regime. Photo / Mark Mitchell

"We're very reliant on multilateral sanctions as a consequence. When you've got a UN [with countries that have] veto powers, that actually becomes a bit meaningless," Luxon said.

"Obviously we want a de-escalation of things on that border with our allies, but we just can't have tools that they have," Luxon said.

The Government's toolkit is not completely empty.

Mahuta said the Government was looking at the "full suite" of measures that it did have available, which includes "suspending high level contacts and travel bans".

New Zealand has used measures like these against countries like Myanmar and Belarus, and against Russia when it invaded Crimea in 2014.

Green Party foreign affairs spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman supported the thrust of Mahuta's position, calling it "non controversial".

However she said the Greens would wanted the Government to push a bit further, by calling on international allies "to support peace in Ukraine". She said that includes the US, whose decision was to beef up its troop presence in eastern Nato countries.

Green Party foreign affairs spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman thinks the Government should not be trapped by Cold War allegiances. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Last month, the US announced it would deploy roughly 2000 troops from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, to Europe, mainly Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine. A further 1000 soldiers already in Germany would head to Romania, which also shares a border with Ukraine.

Much to the chagrin of Russia, the US cycles troops through Eastern European Nato countries, many of which share a border with Ukraine. This itself is somewhat contentious - and key to Russia's demands.

In 1997, Nato and Russia signed the Nato-Russia Founding Act, which normalised post-Cold War relations by declaring the two "do not consider each other as adversaries". The Act also said that (with some caveats) Nato did not see any additional "permanent" stationing of "substantial combat forces beyond its existing, mainly Western European and Mediterranean membership@.

Since then, many of Russia's former Cold War states have joined the European Union and Nato, enraging Russia. One reason the US only rotates forces through Eastern European nations is as a sop to the Act - it does not station them there permanently, as it does in a country like Germany. Russia now wants Nato to pull forces back to 1997 boundaries.

Ghahraman warned that the response to the crisis risked dragging New Zealand into Cold War-style foreign policy, in which New Zealand regularly backs the US on contentious global issues.

"We have fallen back on old allyships," Ghahraman said, pointing to the fact New Zealand was relying increasingly on its membership of the Five Eyes group.

"We have fallen back with our region. We should be using our influence in that way - as an independent voice," she said.

She thinks New Zealand could leverage its trade relationship with China to encourage it to put pressure on Russia to pull back from the brink.

"China is really not invested in this - and we could use that in the interest of peace," she said.

The Greens do not back National's autonomous sanctions push, with Ghahraman saying it would be dangerous to "set a precedent of unilateral action, which will lead to an erosion of international rule of law and politicise the sanctions regime".

Act's foreign affairs spokeswoman Brooke van Velden said Act also backed "international efforts to resolve Ukraine and Russian tensions diplomatically".

Van Velden said the Government should "stand with our Five Eyes partners and like-minded countries to condemn any invasion of Ukraine in joint statements and provide any assistance needed through our security and intelligence network".

She said Act also backed legislation to give New Zealand an autonomous sanctions regime.

Te Paati Māori did not respond to a request for comment.