After a torrid time in Labour’s last term, Phil Twyford has moved from housing to a bigger crisis - ridding the world of dangerous weapons. The minister has big plans for new areas where New Zealand can make its voice heard.

Which is the more formidable challenge: freeing the world of nuclear weapons, or getting KiwiBuild across the line?

It may be a predictable joke, but Phil Twyford offers a long laugh nonetheless before providing a diplomatic response. “Both require achievable objectives and a solid work plan.”

Having spent the last term of government struggling to get to grips with New Zealand’s housing and transport deficiencies, Twyford fell out of Cabinet when Labour won a second term, but took on a new challenge - Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control.

The reinstatement of the standalone role was the key announcement in Jacinda Ardern’s first major foreign policy speech as Prime Minister. Winston Peters took on the honour, but with competing priorities as Foreign Affairs Minister and New Zealand First leader, some felt the portfolio did not get the attention it deserved.

Twyford has no such burden - his only other portfolios are as an associate - and it appears he is keen to get to work.

In a speech to the Disarmament and Security Centre on Wednesday, Twyford laid out a roadmap for New Zealand’s actions on disarmament, saying it could not “continue to work on the same things in the same ways because it is familiar and comfortable, or because it feels good”.

On top of existing efforts on nuclear disarmament, cluster munitions and landmines, the Government wanted to step up its engagement in three areas: the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, lethal autonomous weapons systems, and the peaceful uses of outer space.

Talking to Newsroom after the speech, Twyford said New Zealand’s history of advocacy against nuclear weapons and dedicated disarmament portfolio put it in a position to be an “early adopter” of reform in new areas of concern.

“It's a really good example of breaking through the great disconnect in modern foreign policy, which is that it's very hard to get countries to think beyond the short term and self-interest.”

Thomas Nash, co-director of the New Zealand Alternative thinktank and a key figure in the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told Newsroom it was valuable to have the disarmament minister separate from the foreign affairs role.

Twyford appeared to want to “put more grunt into the portfolio”, Nash said, while his three areas of new focus were an appropriate way for New Zealand to add value to international discussion.

“We don’t want to be smug and preaching from the bottom of the South Pacific ... but we can be smart and thoughtful, and we did that on land mines where we were very helpful, and on cluster munitions too.”

Taking on 'killer robots'

The suggestion of a stronger role for New Zealand on autonomous weapons - sometimes referred to as “killer robots” - represents something of a change from the Government’s approach last term.

Responding to a 2019 letter from over 60 New Zealand-based AI researchers urging a ban, Peters said the country’s view was that international law already set limits on autonomous weapons, while it was clear that “major countries capable of developing [the weapons] would not join a ban” (he did note the Government had advocated for a “high-level political declaration” to establish guidelines and safeguards).

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University of Otago computer science professor Alistair Knott, among the letter’s signatories, told Newsroom he was “cautiously optimistic” about the change in emphasis regarding New Zealand’s role on the issue.

Knott said he and other AI experts were concerned about the country’s advocacy for a so-called “on the loop” approach - where a human is not constantly monitoring an autonomous system but has the ability to hit an abort button - instead of a more fully engaged, hands-on “in the loop” stance.

It was difficult for a human being to exercise suitably high levels of vigilance when they were not fully in control of a system, he said, citing concerns with driverless cars as an example.

“The idea that a machine is able to determine whether a human dies or not, it’s totally dehumanising and absolutely morally repugnant to most people, I think, on the face of it.”

“Human drivers are meant to sit there with the reactions of a normal driver, when 95 percent of the time they don’t have to do anything because the computer is getting it right.”

Knott believed an outright ban was necessary to prevent an “arms race in the AI space”, with previous success in areas like cluster bombs and landmines.

Nash said it was “absolute solid gold” for campaigners to have a government advocate their cause, citing Canada’s role in leading on the prohibition on the use of anti-personnel mines and Norway’s on the use of cluster bombs.

While not all autonomous weapons would need to be banned, “black box systems” where a computer independently developed a target profile and those with sensors designed to target humans had to be prohibited outright.

“The idea that a machine is able to determine whether a human dies or not, it’s totally dehumanising and absolutely morally repugnant to most people, I think, on the face of it.”

Twyford said the problem with a ban was that it was difficult to easily define autonomous weapons as a discrete category, but it was “untenable” for such devices to be untethered from human decision-making.

Spotlight on outer space

Twyford’s call for New Zealand to speak out about “the militarisation and weaponisation of space” is not without wrinkles, given concern about space launches within our own borders.

US-owned and NZ-based company Rocket Lab has faced scrutiny for years over its contracts with the American military and ties to weapons manufacturers, while its launch last month of a satellite for the US Army's Space and Missile Defense Command was criticised heavily by the Green Party.

Twyford signed off on previous Rocket Lab launches during his time as Economic Development Minister, and said the regulatory regime was “pretty good but can always be improved”.

A review of the outer space activities legislation was due to take place later this year, and he would work with Stuart Nash, his successor in the economic development role, on whether any changes were needed.

Twyford said New Zealand’s status as one of only 11 nations with launch capability could give the country added credibility when it came to advocacy on the issue.

However, Thomas Nash said the country’s credibility could in fact be undermined if it did not clamp down on the types of launches that could take place here.

“If the Government wants to be a credible actor on preventing the militarisation of outer space, it needs to sit down and talk to Rocket Lab about the types of payloads it is launching into outer space - I think many New Zealanders agree we shouldn’t be a launch site for military payloads, it just doesn’t feel right.”

“When the going gets tough, the multilateralists have to get going.”

Twyford said he had asked officials to look at policy options in the new areas of focus, with a hope of substantive progress by the end of the year.

However, that work did not mean New Zealand would take a backwards step on more traditional issues like nuclear disarmament, he said.

While there had been good news earlier this year with the US and Russia agreeing at the last minute to extend a nuclear arms control pact, Twyford said there was cause for worry in other areas, expressing concern about the UK’s recent decision to lift the cap on its own nuclear stockpile and roll back transparency provisions.

“Frictions between the world’s superpowers have led to many disarmament setbacks, includ[ing] a new nuclear arms race, expanding roles for nuclear weapons in military doctrines, and flagrant violations of the rules and norms against the use of chemical weapons,” Twyford said in his speech.

But he told Newsroom those tensions made it all the more important for New Zealand to work with like-minded partners to turn the situation around.

“When the going gets tough, the multilateralists have to get going.”