ACT’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson Brooke van Velden has today asked Nanaia Mahuta the question everyone wants answered, why are you here?

“China has signed deals with several Pacific countries that cover policing, security and data communications cooperation. Mahuta should now be in the Pacific, meeting with leaders. But she has no plans to go and couldn’t list any contact she’d had with the Pacific in the past 72-hours,” says Ms van Velden.

“When pushed on how concerned she is about China creeping into the Pacific, she replied that the single biggest threat to the Pacific is climate change. She’s not taking this issue seriously at all.

“New Zealand is letting our Pacific allies down.

“Good Foreign Affairs Ministers of the past have been known to barely set foot in New Zealand they’re so focused on international relations. Nanaia Mahuta has only made three trips outside New Zealand since becoming Minister. The borders are open, she needs to get moving.

“Now the world is opening up it’s more important than ever to leave Zoom diplomacy behind and get back to face to face relationship building.

“The Minister claims she isn’t distracted by her Three Waters agenda but that’s clearly not the case. She needs to forget her unpopular and anti-democratic Three Waters programme and focus on foreign policy.”

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