New Zealand Spy boss Andrew Hampton says security risks in the Cook Islands will be an “even stronger focus” for the Security Intelligence Service after the Pacific nation signed agreements with China.
Hampton, speaking at a Victoria University Centre for Strategic Studies event on Thursday evening, shared details of his agency’s work with Pacific nations, and defended Security Intelligence Service (SIS) involvement in Five Eyes amid the turbulence of U.S President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The SIS director-general travelled to the Cook Islands earlier this year to speak with Prime Minister Mark Brown, as the Government sought to understand a series of agreements Brown was intending to sign with Beijing. Brown signed the agreements last month.
Hampton, in the speech, said he travelled to the Cook Islands to share classified intelligence about foreign interference and espionage.
“It’s important that my agency is able to share insights we have on evolving and shared security challenges,” he said.
“With the Cook Islands developing deeper relationships with other parties, this will necessitate an even stronger focus from my agency on national security risks.”
The Cook Islands is a realm nation of New Zealand, which provides its citizens passports, budgetary, foreign affairs and defence support ‒ with the expectation the island nation acts in accordance with New Zealand’s interests.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have, both before and since the agreements were signed, criticised Brown for a lack of transparency ‒ which Brown disputes ‒ and expressed concern the agreements could pose security risks.
Brown says the comprehensive strategic partnership and maritime agreements are not of such concern and are about economic sovereignty.
Hampton on Thursday said China’s ambition in the Pacific was to “link economic and security co-operation, create competing regional architectures, and expand its influence with Pacific Island countries, across policing, defence, digital, disaster relief, and maritime spheres”.
It was the job of the SIS to “watch for signs of security posturing” in the Pacific and inform not only the New Zealand Government, but Pacific partner countries.
Sharing such intelligence helped inform Pacific leaders on issues such as “correcting loopholes in law, understanding the background to investment applications, and adopting protective security measures designed to make nations harder targets” of espionage and foreign interference.
He said he regularly discussed intelligence matters with Pacific leaders including meeting Niue Prime Minister Dalton Tagelagi, who was in Wellington this week. Niue is also a New Zealand realm nation.
“This is not a one-way flow of information, either. Intelligence received from Pacific partners is consistently key to filling missing pieces of the intelligence puzzles about what is happening in the region.”
Hampton was asked about New Zealand’s involvement in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing arrangement during a subsequent Q&A session.
Questions about New Zealand’s involvement in the decades-long arrangement with the U.S, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia are again being posed as Trump aggressively seeks to reshape the world order, including by pausing military aid to Ukraine and placing tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
Hampton said his agency acts in New Zealand’s interests and “in accordance with our own independent foreign policy”.
“The Five Eyes does not compromise that, indeed in many ways, that actually enables it by giving us access to information that we will not be able to have.”
“We receive information every day, every day, that protects New Zealand from cyber attacks, protects New Zealanders from potentially violent extremist acts, certainly protects New Zealand from foreign interference and espionage.
“Of course, we’re in unpredictable times at the moment, and there’s a range of significant shifts occurring across the globe, including what’s happening within the U.S.
“But, as the prime minister said, the relationship we have with the U.S is a fundamental, fundamental one.”
New Zealand’s national security “depends on working closely with the U.S,” he said.
