Parliament's "powerful message" of support for new sanctions legislation targeting those linked to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has received a warm welcome globally, New Zealand's top foreign affairs official says.
All political parties represented in Parliament have backed new legislation enabling the Government to impose economic sanctions on people, companies and assets associated with Russia's aggression towards its eastern European neighbour.
The Russia Sanctions Bill moved quickly through all stages of the legislative process on Wednesday night, forgoing usually lengthy public consultation. All MPs supported the urgency in acknowledgement of the need to respond quickly to Vladimir Putin's war.
According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) chief executive Chris Seed, our overseas partners have taken note of that.
"Diplomatically, you, the Parliament, sent a very powerful message to the international community through the unanimity of both the urgency and the agreement on the Bill," Seed told the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence Select Committee on Thursday.
"We've already had feedback from partners out of London and from Kyiv through our mission in Warsaw about how well that has been received."
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, speaking during the debate in the House on Wednesday, said there aren't many situations that justify urgency "more than the invasion of a sovereign country".
That was echoed by Te Paati Māori's Rawiri Waititi, who said the use of urgency must meet a "high bar", but "the need to support Ukraine is a rapidly evolving situation that is urgent and real".
However, he said there could have been a week-long public submissions process. Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta later said some organisations, like the NZ Law Society, had been contacted for their input. The scheme will also eventually be reviewed.
Were we too slow?
Until this legislation was passed, New Zealand had no ability to unilaterally impose specific sanctions on Russian oligarchs, officials and financial institutions without United Nations Security Council (UNSC) approval.
Due to Russia's veto power, the UNSC is essentially unable to act and the lack of independent power had opened Aotearoa up to claims it wasn't pulling its weight in the international response to the conflict.
Both National and ACT, while supporting the Bill, said New Zealand could have been in a position to impose the sanctions as soon as Russia invaded if it already had an autonomous sanctions regime in place.
A Member's Bill introduced by National's Gerry Brownlee last year tried to establish such a regime - which wouldn't be specific to just Russia's invasion - but Labour voted it down, saying it didn't adequately account for human rights or cyber-security issues. Brownlee has maintained the Government could have simply altered the Bill's scope instead of just dumping it.
ACT's Brooke van Velden said the Government had been "extremely slow to pass this law" considering "it uses urgency at the drop of a hat to pass all sorts of crazy laws in this Parliament".
"It seems ridiculous to me that we have a Government over here that preaches kindness and believes it can solve every problem in the world by just saying that we should be kind and we should smile. It's a fantasy-land delusion. The world is messy. The world is not always kind, and you can't always just solve something with a bit of spin and a smile."
During the Select Committee on Thursday, Seed said MFAT had given successive governments advice since 2012 "that there was merit in taking forward an autonomous sanctions Bill" as it was a "useful additional element to the toolkit" and other countries were moving in that direction.
One of the challenges with autonomous sanctions, Seed said, is what message they send about the value of the international system when a country is giving itself the ability to impose sanctions. He said it was a balance between supporting the UNSC and recognising that it doesn't always work.
Deborah Geels, MFAT's deputy secretary, multilateral and legal group, said a 2012 autonomous sanctions Bill, which Brownlee's Member's Bill is similar to, no longer fits New Zealand's needs.
"The Bill didn't provide the sanctions with respect to emerging areas of security such as cyber security, cyber attacks, for example, or to address human rights abuses… There was also a focus in the Bill on the Asia Pacific region. I think we'd want to have a look at that to see if we need to go more broadly."
She said the specific Russia Sanctions Bill was quickly developed and it will take longer to construct a full autonomous sanctions regime. The Government has said it will continue to consider the place of such a scheme as part of New Zealand's foreign policy.
While New Zealand hasn't been able to impose economic sanctions, it did quickly respond to the invasion by issuing travel bans, prohibiting exports to the Russian military and suspending some official consultation with the Russians. It's been party to a number of statements and resolutions condemning Putin and has so far donated $2 million to humanitarian efforts.
