“New Zealand’s Militarisation and the Export of Authoritarian Neoliberalism” - 3 November 2025

Tēnā koutou katoa. Kia ora e te whānau.

In late October 2025, Defence Minister Judith Collins returned from Malaysia’s ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus, having secured commitments to military “interoperability” with authoritarian regimes and signed new defence agreements. What New Zealand media treated as routine defence diplomacy masks a far more troubling reality: the systematic alignment of Aotearoa’s policy architecture with a coordinated international blueprint for authoritarian neoliberalism—one being actively implemented in Washington by Russell Vought, architect of Project 2025, and mirrored in New Zealand through the legislative agenda of ACT Party leader David Seymour.

The smoking gun lies not in a conspiracy but in plain sight: New Zealand is simultaneously dismantling the constitutional protections that guarantee Māori rights while militarising its economy and gutting the public sector—the precise playbook outlined in Project 2025 and now being executed across Five Eyes and allied nations. This is not accident. This is coordinated strategy.

The International Architecture: Project 2025 and the Export of Authoritarian Governance

Project 2025—the 922-page “Mandate for Leadership” published by the Heritage Foundation—represents the most comprehensive blueprint for authoritarian restructuring yet produced by the American conservative movement. With over 110 coalition partners spanning 103 countries, the Heritage Foundation has built relationships with authoritarian-leaning governments globally, explicitly modeling itself on Viktor Orbán’s Hungary as “not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model”.

Russell Vought, one of Project 2025’s principal architects, now serves as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a position that was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 6, 2025 with a 53-47 vote. This role controls every dollar of federal spending and has already been weaponised to freeze funds, fire federal workers, and dismantle agencies—with Trump calling Vought the “grim reaper”.

Vought’s role represents unprecedented centralisation of executive power. In his chapter in Project 2025, Vought wrote that OMB must view itself as “the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind,” describing OMB as “a President’s air-traffic control system” which should become “powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies”. By October 2025, Vought had orchestrated mass firings of federal workers, with “RIFs have begun” (reduction-in-force plans) targeting agencies including the departments of Education, Treasury, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The international coordination matters because the identical ideological framework—marketed as “regulatory efficiency” or “cost control”—is now being imposed on allied democracies through what appears to be sovereign decision-making but represents genuine policy synchronisation.

New Zealand’s $12 Billion Militarisation: Following Trump’s Script

On April 6, 2025, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon unveiled New Zealand’s 2025 Defence Capability Plan: $12 billion in defence spending over four years, with $9 billion in new money. This represents the largest militarisation in decades—lifting defence spending from just over 1% of GDP to more than 2 percent by 2032/33, levels not seen since the early 1990s.

The timing, framing, and targets are revealing. In February 2025, when questioned by RNZ about Trump’s pressure for increased defence spending, Luxon stated “We will be spending more on defence. We will be getting as close to two percent as we possibly can”. By June 2025, Luxon stated he wasn’t pressured by NATO to increase defence spending—yet New Zealand had simultaneously met with NATO leadership to celebrate the commitment.

This military spending surge occurs in the precise context described by analysis of Project 2025: the plan requires allies to absorb security spending traditionally shouldered by the US, freeing American capital for internal restructuring. New Zealand is funding this realignment while simultaneously dismantling the social infrastructure that sustains Māori survival.

The Ideological Template: David Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill as New Zealand’s “Mandate for Leadership”

While Judith Collins manages military alignment, ACT Party leader David Seymour advances the domestic restructuring agenda through legislation explicitly designed to entrench libertarian ideology into constitutional law. The Regulatory Standards Bill—passed through first reading on May 22, 2025—represents Project 2025 transplanted directly into New Zealand legislation.

Seymour’s connections to the international neoliberal network are documented and explicit. Since 2008, he has been involved with the Atlas Network, an international consortium of right-wing think tanks. In his 2021 State of the Nation address, Seymour described Atlas as “old friends” and holds an “Atlas Think Tank MBA”. New Zealand’s Taxpayers Union and New Zealand Initiative—both deeply embedded in the Bill’s architecture—are Atlas Network members.

The Regulatory Standards Bill institutionalises the same principle Russell Vought has weaponised in Washington: subordination of public welfare, environmental protection, and indigenous rights to property rights and “individual freedom.” The Bill explicitly excludes Te Tiriti o Waitangi from its “principles,” creating legal pathways for corporations to sue governments for regulations protecting Māori rights or the environment. Over 20,000 public submissions opposed the Bill; only 0.33% supported it.

The Financial Networks: Funding Flows and Ideological Alignment

The Atlas Network comprises over 500 think tanks across more than 100 countries, promoting policy reform, free markets and limited government, with critics arguing its initiatives favour corporate interests and undermine workers’ rights and environmental protections. The network has been involved in several high-profile political movements, including the rise of Brazil’s populist former president Jair Bolsonaro.

In New Zealand, this translates to interlocking directorates: Seymour’s ACT Party, the Taxpayers Union, the New Zealand Initiative, and think tanks like Maxim Institute all operate within this network. The New Zealand Initiative was formed from a merger that included the Business Roundtable—an organisation that spent decades opposing Māori rights, environmental protection, and public health measures.

Christopher Luxon’s background—an 18-year career at Unilever managing international operations across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific before joining Air New Zealand—positions him within these same transnational corporate networks. While no direct connection to Project 2025 is documentable, his policies align perfectly with its prescriptions: increased defence spending, reduced foreign aid, and deference to neoliberal restructuring.

The Tikanga Violation: How Militarisation and Deregulation Attack Whanaungatanga, Manaakitanga, and Kaitiakitanga

Te Ao Māori is built on relational principles fundamentally incompatible with the ideology driving this transformation:

Whanaungatanga (relationships, kinship): The disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority Te Aka Whai Ora occurred on June 30, 2024, after the government passed legislation under urgency that abolished the authority in just a matter of hours. The destruction of co-governance structures and the directive ordering public services to operate on “need” rather than supporting Māori specifically, systematically sever the relational networks through which Māori organise survival and collective wellbeing.

Manaakitanga (hospitality, caring for others): New Zealand’s climate financing commitments decreased from $250 million to $100 million in 2025 Budget, representing a 50% cut. At the same time, an injection of $100 million a year into Aotearoa’s aid to overseas nations has not stemmed a downward trajectory in aid levels through to 2027. Manaakitanga has been replaced with Seymour’s “individual freedom”—coded language for abandoning collective responsibility.

Kaitiakitanga (guardianship of the environment): The Regulatory Standards Bill explicitly weaponises environmental regulation against Māori. By creating corporate compensation mechanisms when regulations affect property, the Bill transforms environmental stewardship from a Māori right into a corporate liability.

The Quantified Harm: Māori Health and the Arithmetic of Abandonment

The stakes of this restructuring are written in Māori mortality data:

Life expectancy: According to the 2023 Health Status Report, Māori women die on average 7 years earlier than European/Other women; Māori men 8 years earlier than European/Other men. While Māori life expectancy increased 3.1 years between 2005-2007 and 2022-2024, reaching 75.8 years, versus 1.5-1.6 years increase for European/Other groups, the gap remains structural with 2022-2024 life expectancy for Māori at 75.8 years compared to 82.8 years for European/Other populations.

Institutional dismantling: The disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority established in 2022 after two landmark reviews, occurred in just a matter of hours in February 2024 as Parliament passed all three readings. The removal of the MHA is described by health researchers as “antithetical to the explicit endorsement statements made by an overwhelming majority of group submitters with expertise in health organisational structures and healthcare provision.”

Hidden Connections: The Coordinated Attack on Rights

Connection 1: Russell Vought → Christopher Luxon → Judith Collins
Vought’s OMB role includes directing the “reshaping” of US foreign policy and alliance relationships through the explicit framework outlined in Project 2025. New Zealand’s defence spending increase, announced within weeks of Trump’s demands and following consultation with NATO leadership aligned with Trump administration figures, represents policy synchronisation.

Connection 2: David Seymour → Atlas Network → Heritage Foundation → Russell Vought
Seymour’s documented involvement with Atlas since 2008, combined with the Regulatory Standards Bill’s ideological identity with Project 2025’s anti-regulatory, property-rights-maximising agenda, reveals policy synchronisation. The Bill reads as a direct translation of Heritage Foundation principles into New Zealand law—drafted by the same ideological network funding Seymour’s party.

Connection 3: ACT Coalition Agreement → Māori Rights Dismantling
Between November 2023 and May 2025, the coalition government:

· Abolished the Māori Health Authority (February 2024)

· Introduced the Treaty Principles Bill (November 2024), defeated 112-11 in April 2025 but signalling intention

· Implemented “need-blind” public service directives eliminating Māori-targeted services (September 2024)

· Cut climate finance by 50% ($250m→$100m) affecting Pacific nations (May 2025)

· Implemented line-by-line reviews of foreign aid with no replacement funding trajectory announced (2024-2025)

This represents systematic dismantling of the institutional infrastructure supporting Māori survival—executed through the same deregulatory, “efficiency” framework Russell Vought is deploying in Washington.

The Dog-Whistles and Logical Fallacies: Deconstructing the Rhetoric

“Colourblind” governance = Erasing structural inequality: The cabinet directive to abandon “race as a proxy for need” assumes that Māori health disparities, educational inequity, and economic deprivation are not structural but rather coincidental. This commits the “equal treatment of unequal situations” fallacy. As the 2023 Health Status Report documented, Māori women die on average 7 years earlier than European/Other women, and Māori men 8 years earlier—this is not solved by not acknowledging ethnicity; it is worsened.

“Regulatory efficiency” = Abandoning environmental protection and health equity: The Regulatory Standards Bill frames regulation as inherently wasteful. This commits the false equivalence fallacy by treating a regulation protecting Māori water rights identically to a regulation protecting corporate mining interests. It obscures that deregulation systematically benefits those with existing power and property.

“Individual freedom” = Dismantling collective responsibility: Seymour’s libertarian framing invokes freedom while implementing coercion—the coercion of withdrawal of public services, environmental protection, and cultural rights. This is the rhetorical inversion by which colonialism is repackaged as liberty.

“Fiscal responsibility” = Protecting wealth, abandoning vulnerable people: Cuts to climate finance, foreign aid, and Māori health services are framed as “living within our means.” Yet the government simultaneously committed $12 billion to military spending—a clear prioritisation choice that contradicts “fiscal restraint” narratives.

Implications: The Threatened Rights and the Mobilisation Imperative

Threatened Under Law:

The Regulatory Standards Bill, if implemented, would enable:

· Corporations to sue the Crown for lost profits from Māori environmental protections

· Future governments to dismantle water protections, health equity programmes, and environmental regulations without constitutional constraint

· Reinterpretation of te Tiriti o Waitangi away from partnership principles toward purely extractive governance

· Deregulation of industries affecting Māori-majority regions (mining, forestry, fishing) without consultation requirements

Quantified Threat:

If health inequities widen due to Māori Health Authority abolition and the dismantling of targeted services, Māori life expectancy could decline. Current trends show health gains have “slowed over the past five years across all ethnicities”—the acceleration of this decline would represent thousands of preventable Māori deaths.

What Must Happen Now

Immediate Actions:

1. Coalition Opposition and Health Authority Restoration: Te Aka Whai Ora must be reinstated with full funding and autonomous governance, as called for by health researchers and iwi organizations.

2. Foreign Aid Restoration: Climate finance must be restored to $250 million annually and future ODA budgets ringfenced in law—not subject to annual political whim.

3. Treaty Consultation on Defence: The $12 billion defence spending increase must include mandatory meaningful consultation with Māori about the militarisation of Aotearoa and its implications for peace-building and regional stability.

Systemic Actions:

4. Atlas Network Exposure: New Zealanders must understand that the ideological architecture driving the Regulatory Standards Bill comes from foreign billionaire-funded networks explicitly hostile to Indigenous rights, including the Koch-funded Atlas Network.

5. Five Eyes Solidarity Across Indigenous Movements: Māori must coordinate internationally with First Nations (Canada/Australia) and Pacific Indigenous peoples to expose and resist coordinated attacks on Indigenous constitutionalism happening across the Five Eyes.

6. Alternative Defence and Development Vision: New Zealand must articulate a genuinely independent foreign policy centred on climate resilience, regional partnership, and Pacific leadership—not military interoperability with authoritarian regimes or alignment with US strategic competition with China.

Moral Clarity in the Face of Empire

This is not complexity masquerading as nuance. The facts are plain:

A right-wing coalition commanding only 43% of the vote is systematically dismantling Māori constitutional protections while militarising the economy—precisely mirroring the policy playbook being executed in Washington by Project 2025 architects like Russell Vought. The ideological template comes from the Heritage Foundation and Atlas Network. The funding networks are transparent. The intended beneficiaries are corporations and the wealthy. The intended casualties are Māori, Pacific peoples, and those dependent on public services and environmental protection.

The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right

This requires response at three levels:

Wairuatanga—Spiritual resistance: Reclaim the tikanga and whakapapa grounding resistance in something deeper than liberal complaint. This is a defence of existence itself.

Kotahitanga—Unified action: Build coalitions across all vulnerable populations—Māori, Pacific peoples, working-class Pākehā, public sector workers—who share common enemies and common interests.

Aroha—Compassionate force: Resist without consuming yourself in bitterness. The goal is survival and flourishing for all, not punishment of the perpetrators.

The time for polite submission has passed. The empire is restructuring. The question before whānau Māori is whether we resist with the clarity and conviction this moment demands.

Kia kaha. Kia maia. Kia manawanui.

Koha Request

If this mahi has strengthened your understanding of the networks and strategies threatening Māori tino rangatiratanga, whānau are humbly invited to support future research and writing through koha to:

Hōkitika Tuhawaiki Development Māori
03-1546-0415173-000

Koha supports the continuation of this independent investigative work grounded in tikanga and accountability to whānau.

To those who have fought before us, kia ora.
To those fighting now, kia kaha.
To the tamariki who will inherit the outcome of these choices, we owe clarity and commitment.

Aroha mai, aroha atu, aroha Aotearoa.

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