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Greg Bouwer
IINZ
Chris Hipkins has been having a field day condemning New Zealand potentially joining Donald Trump’s Gaza Board of Peace. “Absolute disgrace,” he calls it. “An embarrassment.” Why? Because Vladimir Putin might be on it. Yes, the same Putin who has invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, and presides over a regime notorious for political repression. According to Hipkins, sitting anywhere near him is beyond the pale.
And yet, the same Labour leader who frames New Zealand as a principled global actor seems perfectly content to have New Zealand participate in the United Nations, where human-rights abusers are treated as ordinary members, often chairing councils, leading committees, and shaping policy. Russia. China. Saudi Arabia. States committing systematic violations of rights, oppression of minorities, suppression of free speech. No problem there, apparently. The UN’s moral failings are largely shrugged off, quietly accepted, and rarely questioned by Hipkins, even though New Zealand’s name is on the membership rolls.
Nor is Vladimir Putin the only morally compromised figure reportedly set to sit on the Board of Peace. Turkey and Qatar – neither of them paragons of human rights, free expression, or liberal governance – are also expected participants. Yet New Zealand already engages routinely with both through NATO partners, UN forums, and regional diplomacy. If the mere presence of flawed actors renders a multilateral forum illegitimate, then much of New Zealand’s existing foreign policy architecture collapses under the same logic.
The uncomfortable truth is that international diplomacy is not conducted in rooms filled with saints. It requires judgement, balance, and a clear-eyed understanding of interests and influence. Declaring one forum an “absolute disgrace” while treating another as sacrosanct – despite similar moral compromises – is not principled foreign policy. It is selective outrage at its finest.
If the standard is “never sit alongside human-rights abusers”, then Hipkins’ own UN record fails spectacularly. And yet, when the initiative is Trump-led, all of a sudden, New Zealand must stand high on principle and reject it. The message is clear: it’s not the moral composition of the membership that matters — it’s the political optics and the chance to bash the government in public.
This is the problem with moral grandstanding – it only works when convenient. The UN, imperfect as it is, allows New Zealand to engage, to advocate, to push for better outcomes – even in the company of regimes we abhor. The Board of Peace? Suddenly, participation is intolerable, simply because the wrong international figurehead is involved. That’s not principled foreign policy. That’s political theatre.
New Zealanders deserve consistency, not hypocrisy dressed up as virtue. If Hipkins genuinely cares about human rights, he needs to explain why the UN’s flawed structure is acceptable while the Board of Peace is intolerable. Until then, his “absolute disgrace” line reads less like principled foreign policy and more like a cheap soundbite for morning radio.
In short: pick a standard, Chris. You can’t rail against Trump’s board for including Putin while comfortably ignoring the UN’s roster of human-rights violators. Moral clarity isn’t selective. It’s universal – or it’s just politics masquerading as principle.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
