IT MUST be an election year, because New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has reached for one of the oldest tools in his arsenal: destabilise your own government partner to strengthen your hand. His decision to release internal emails revealing that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon initially favoured 'more explicit public support of the US action' in the opening days of the United States and Israel’s attack on Iran is not just a political embarrassment for Luxon. It is a window into a government that has abandoned any pretence of an independent foreign policy and is now reduced to bickering over how loudly it should echo Washington.
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has already cut through the spin. Luxon, she said, 'clearly' wanted to publicly back the attack, but he couldn’t because his foreign minister said, ‘you can’t do that’. The documents Peters has now aired show exactly that: Luxon’s instinct was to align New Zealand openly with the United States and Israel, while Peters and his advisers pushed for a more cautious line that stopped short of endorsing the strike. Peters’ position prevailed — but only in the narrowest, most technical sense. What emerged was not a principled stance, not a defence of international law, but a posture of silent inaction. A refusal to condemn the attack, paired with a refusal to admit support for it.
Silence, however, is not neutrality. In the face of the unprovoked and illegal strike on Iran — a strike that escalated a regional crisis and deepened the suffering of civilians across the Middle East — silence is complicity. It signals to Washington and Tel Aviv that New Zealand can be counted on to fall in line, whether explicitly or tacitly. Luxon may have been prevented from issuing the endorsement he wanted, but the government’s refusal to condemn the attack speaks just as loudly.
Under Peters’ tenure as foreign minister, New Zealand has consistently avoided criticising Israel, even as international bodies, human rights organisations, and legal experts describe the devastation in Gaza as genocidal. Peters is well known for his sympathies toward Israel, and the government’s record reflects that alignment. New Zealand has not joined the growing list of countries supporting proceedings against Israel at the International Criminal Court. It has not condemned the invasion of Lebanon. It has not spoken out against the United States and Israel’s strike on Iran. Instead, it has chosen the safety of silence — a silence that shields the powerful and abandons the victims.
The release of these emails also exposes the deeper fracture lines within the coalition as the election draws nearer. Luxon wants to present himself as a steady, statesmanlike leader, but the correspondence shows a prime minister willing to follow Washington’s lead even when his own foreign minister warns against it. Peters, for his part, is attempting to reassert his relevance by positioning himself as the guardian of caution and restraint — even though his broader record shows unwavering alignment with US strategic interests. The clash is not between independence and subservience, but between two different styles of managing the same underlying loyalty to American imperialism.
What the public sees is a government divided not over principle, but over presentation. Luxon wanted to say the quiet part out loud. Peters preferred to keep it quiet. But both approaches lead to the same destination: a foreign policy that bends toward the United States, that treats Israel as beyond reproach, and that abandons New Zealand’s long-standing commitment to international law when it becomes inconvenient.
New Zealand once prided itself on an independent foreign policy — a stance rooted in the belief that small states survive by upholding international law, not by attaching themselves to empires. That tradition has been steadily eroded. Under Luxon and Peters, it has been abandoned altogether. The government’s response to the US-Israel attack on Iran is only the latest example. Its silence on Gaza and Lebanon, its refusal to support international legal action, its unwillingness to criticise Washington even when American actions violate the very norms New Zealand claims to defend — all of it points to a country that has traded independence for alignment.
The irony is that the coalition’s internal squabbling only underscores this reality. The emails do not reveal a principled debate about New Zealand’s role in the world. They reveal a government arguing over how best to manage its subservience. Luxon wanted to be explicit. Peters wanted to be discreet. Neither wanted to challenge the United States. Neither wanted to defend international law. Neither wanted to stand with the victims of the strikes.
As the election approaches, the fractures within the coalition will widen. But on the question that matters most — whether New Zealand should remain a faithful supporter of US Empire — there is no fracture at all. Luxon and Peters may disagree on tone, but they agree on substance. And that substance is the abandonment of New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in favour of a quiet, compliant, and increasingly hollow imitation of sovereignty.
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