Maritime Security Strategy of New Zealand was formally launched at a one-day symposium held at InterContinental, Wellington on Thursday, 17 June 2021. The symposium (New Zealand’s Maritime Security: Interests, Challenges and Strategy) was organised by Centre for Strategic Studies Te Pokapū Take Rautaki Aotearoa, Victoria University of Wellington.

Maritime Security Oversight Committee (MSOC) with Ministry of Transport in lead, brought together 10 other agencies to accomplish this strategy task. Peter Mersi from the Ministry of Transport set the overarching context for the alignment between the National Security System and the Maritime Security Strategy. 

The need, direction, and vision of this strategy, at this stage, sets the basic framework for its implementation. Structured on four pillars, this strategy was further explained at the symposium by various agencies signifying their relation to those pillars. Pillar One: Understand – Ministry of Primary Industry. Pillar Two: Engage – Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade. Pillar Three: Engage – Royal New Zealand Navy. Pillar Four: Respond – Immigration as representative of Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

During other sessions of the symposium, university academics brought in complex disruption assessment and situated this strategy within the Indo-Pacific perspective. Suzannah Jessep of Asia New Zealand Foundation while charing the Indo-Pacific session promised the audience they would finally hear the word “China” a lot during that session. Thus, this strategy is going to reverberate far and wide when implemented. 

During the day, Dan Eaton and Kristin Chambers from Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) made references to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch masjidain on 15 March 2019. The Royal Commission of Inquiry has made recommendations on four themes. One of those four themes states that everyone in society has a role in making New Zealand safe and inclusive. Dan Eaton and Kristen Chambers specifically pointed to this theme and mentioned He Whenua Taurikura hui held in Christchurch a couple of days ago.

Situating the social aspect of making New Zealand safe and inclusive within the Maritime Security Strategy is an interesting sphere of influence. It is not clear at this stage how the society is going to be approached and engaged in this process. He Whenua Taurikura hui is a good beginning but details about further flow into communities is currently scanty.

Towards the end of the symposium, concurrent thematic workshops focussed on designing and implementing strategy in New Zealand (Workshop A) and the challenge of vessel tracking in the maritime domain (Workshop B). Justin Allan of New Zealand Customs talked about creating the strategy at Workshop A. Earlier during the day, Justin Allan won the accolades from various corners of the symposium for persistently working towards making this strategy a reality in the past years. 

Justin Allan underlined how strategy making having lost its ground in the past in New Zealand finally made a comeback with Maritime Security Strategy. This took me down the memory lane to the year 2009 when School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington had two prominent academic programmes. Master of Strategic Studies and Master of Public Policy.

Unfortunately, due to petty-minded developments in 2009 (a discussion for another day), Master of Strategic Studies programme was removed from the School of Government. This started a sliding slope for “strategy” in the New Zealand public sector. As a result, policy teams of the public sector started encroaching into the strategy space. To further compound this problem, a newly elected government in 2009 unleashed multiple restructuring of the New Zealand public sector. During this restructuring, the leftovers of strategy were grabbed by the public sector accountants, and they ran away with it.

Maritime Security Strategy has marked the return of strategy in New Zealand. Let us hope it is going to get rid of encroachments as it further gets a foothold, once implemented.