Politics

Labour will not engage on Ukraine's military drone offer, O'Connor says

Hana SinclairPublished 6m ago2 min readBased on 9 sources
Labour will not engage on Ukraine's military drone offer, O'Connor says
Photo by New Zealand Parliament / CC BY-SA 4.0

Labour's defence spokesperson, Damien O'Connor, has said the party will not engage on Ukraine's offer to help develop military drones if it wins office. He made the remarks at a campaign meeting in Auckland on Wednesday evening.

In a statement to RNZ, O'Connor said Labour would not support New Zealand buying lethal autonomous weapons, which are armed systems that can act without a person choosing each target. He said Labour would support international efforts to ban them.

Outside such a ban, O'Connor said, Labour would ask officials for advice on Ukraine's proposals. It would also seek advice on the risks, costs and benefits of buying drone technology.

Ukraine's ambassador to New Zealand and Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, has made drone offers to New Zealand since 2025. Ukraine's drone offer has been taken up in various ways by more than a dozen countries this year, including New Zealand's Five Eyes security partners.

National's Paul Goldsmith told RNZ that officials had been considering the drone opportunities Ukraine raised. He said these included how they could support New Zealand's defence priorities and wider support for Ukraine. He said no decisions had been made.

The government's Defence Capability Plan 2025 sets out to rebuild the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) and prepare for what it describes as an increasingly volatile world. O'Connor has cast doubt on going ahead with the $12 billion defence capability upgrade, which RNZ reports includes $9 billion in new spending over 2025-29. RNZ

O'Connor criticised former defence minister Judith Collins for adopting the plan, saying there was no money for it. He told the Auckland meeting that the NZDF's primary areas were disaster recovery and humanitarian support, not active and lethal engagement.

O'Connor also committed to reviewing whether buying frigates, a type of warship, was a good idea. He said he would examine the military strategic and tactical groups New Zealand has recently joined.

Related Articles