Analysis – The Realm of New Zealand’s four leaders are meeting in Auckland on Friday morning for a chance for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to field their most pressing concerns.
The meeting is also an opportunity for the leaders – representing New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau – to put their heads together ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting in Palau next week.
PM Christopher Luxon will be speaking to media following the meeting. Watch a livestream below:
The Cook Islands and Niue are independent states in all aspects apart from defence and security, for which New Zealand is responsible for assisting with. They also have equal citizenship rights to Kiwis under the Cook Islands Constitution Act 1964 and Niue Constitution Act 1974.
Their “free association” arrangements are unique in the world, only seen elsewhere in Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, which associate with the United States under their respective Compacts of Free Association.
Tokelau, on the other hand, is a dependent territory governed from Wellington, but given the autonomy to manage its own affairs domestically.
Though their land is small, their oceans are massive. This forces Wellington to think more strategically, with the responsibility to defend nearly 2.6 million square kilometres of exclusive economic zones (EEZ), in a moment of intense geopolitical competition between the US and China.
But while the Cook Islands is making headway with global superpowers, Tokelau is facing a financial crisis from a massive loss in fishing revenue.
Meanwhile, all are reeling from a fuel crisis, seeing massive price spikes at the pump, for which New Zealand, where the Cooks and Niue get all of their fuel – would have some influence.
Cook Islands – going deep
In March of this year, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown visited Wellington but never met with Luxon.
Freshly re-elected for a third term last week, Brown is seeing his New Zealand counterpart face-to-face for the first time in nearly a year – around five months since the two countries made amends.
That now-infamous spat, which began in late 2024 over a security deal with China, had been punctuated by a dodgy ship registry, an attempt to shoehorn a special Cooks passport, and an “independence” rhetoric from Brown that had irked Wellington.
It was described by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) as a breakdown in trust, and before Brown doorstopped New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters during the March visit, the two countries were only meeting through officials.
Meetings between Brown and Peters, starting in Peters’ Auckland living room, appear to have brought that relationship back to normal.
Though they have signed an agreement that supercedes anything Brown signed with Beijing, along with ditching some of the controversial policy ideas, Brown has not back down from his position that the Cook Islands was on a “voyage of statehood”, insisting his country is “growing in influence” globally.
That may be true. The United States has recently deployed a new Ambassador, Jared Novelly, who divides his time between NZ, the Cooks, Niue and Samoa.
Novelly, speaking to reporters when he arrived in Wellington last month, appeared more interested in the Cooks than he did in New Zealand. He has promised to be in the Cooks “often”, ranking it as “either 1a or 1b on my priority list”.
The Trump Administration has made no secret of its deep-sea mining ambitions in the Pacific. It has begun issuing mining licenses in its own Pacific territories, all the while ramping up engagement with the Cooks over the last year and earning exploration privileges along the way.
Brown welcomed a seabed exploration mission into the Cooks’ EEZ with open arms. When the mission returned with its results at a ceremony last week, the US boasted about the vast stretches of metal nodules it had found, far exceeding what was previously believed to be there.
For New Zealand, this may be a point of contention. Wellington supports a moratorium on deepsea mining in international waters before an international code can be established. It would argue there are too many “unknowns” in terms of environmental impact, especially given the potential for mining to lay waste to marine life.
It has, however, stated that it respects the decisions of independent countries.
Crisis in Tokelau
Beginning in February, Tokelau has been bleeding money after being expelled from the Vessel Day Scheme (VDA), a lucrative arrangement allowing the autonomous territory to sell time in its waters to tuna fishers.
The VDS is administered by the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), a cartel of Pacific countries with vast EEZs – of which New Zealand is not a member.
MFAT maintains that, for all intents and purposes, Tokelau manages its fisheries independently of Wellington.
But RNZ has previously reported that both Tokelauan and PNA country officials have dwelt on New Zealand “interference” in Tokelau’s fisheries, causing Tokelau to tell the PNA that they were less able to make independent decisions.
Officials have stated that they are “actively lobbying” PNA member states to let Tokelau back in. The upcoming PIF leaders summit would be an ample opportunity to do so.
The territory’s finances are not readily available to the public. But documents released under the Official Information Act put estimated losses between February and June at around 60 percent of Tokelau’s fishing profits.
That loss would decimate its independent revenue and leaves it almost entirely dependent on New Zealand aid – which as of yet has not increased to make up for the shortfall.
