The new United States ambassador has barely settled into Wellington and he is already prodding one of the most settled lines in New Zealand politics, the ban on nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed ships. In his first round of interviews this week Jared Novelly made clear he would like the chance to work on New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy, and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has answered him just as plainly by ruling any change out.
Novelly told RNZ that he had not seen any appetite for change in the short time he had been in the country, but that he would relish the opportunity to work with New Zealand on the issue. He reached for a film reference to make his point, saying “I want to go into a DeLorean and go back to 1985, maybe I could fix this nuclear thing.” The line is a nod to Back to the Future, but the sentiment behind it is serious. Novelly wants New Zealanders to think again about a policy that has stood for four decades.
His main pitch is that people would feel differently if they saw an American warship up close. “I would love to see one of our aircraft carriers come down, in Auckland harbour, the City of Sails, so that you can see what it is and what we have,” he said. He argued that seeing the vessels in person would help people “realise that it’s not some sort of boogeyman that you have to worry about.” He even floated the idea of staging a basketball game on the flight deck, telling 1News it would be a way to show off what the ships can do.
The problem for the ambassador is that this is not a matter of public relations, it is a matter of law. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 makes it an offence to bring nuclear weapons into the country, and Section 11 prohibits entry into New Zealand’s internal waters by any ship whose propulsion is wholly or partly dependent on nuclear power. Every modern United States aircraft carrier is nuclear-powered, which is exactly why none has visited since the law was passed. Changing that would require Parliament to amend or repeal the Act, not a friendly tour of the harbour.
The legislation grew out of one of the defining episodes in recent New Zealand history. In 1985 the Labour government led by David Lange refused a visit by the American destroyer USS Buchanan because Washington would neither confirm nor deny whether it carried nuclear weapons. The United States responded by suspending its security obligations to New Zealand under the ANZUS treaty. The nuclear-free stance that followed has since become a point of national pride that governments of both major parties have kept in place, and it is often described as part of the country’s identity rather than just a defence setting.
That is why the Prime Minister’s response left no room for doubt. Asked whether he would bow to pressure from the United States to fix the issue, Luxon said “absolutely not,” and said the position would not change under his leadership at all. His firmness matters because Novelly is not a lone voice from a minor posting. He is a billionaire businessman and a personal acquaintance of President Donald Trump, and he was confirmed by the United States Senate in late May after the ambassador’s post in Wellington had sat empty since January 2025. He is also accredited as ambassador to Samoa, and he marked the American Independence Day in Wellington this week.
Former Labour foreign minister and diplomat Phil Goff, who knows the transtasman and transpacific relationship as well as anyone, backed the government line and framed resistance as a national trait. New Zealand does not like to be told what to do, he said, calling it a good Kiwi characteristic, and he made clear the country would not shift its stance.
For all the noise, Novelly has been careful to say the choice is not his to make. He has acknowledged that it is not his role to change New Zealand law and that he had seen no sign the public wants it changed. What he is really doing is opening a conversation and testing the temperature, and so far the temperature is cold. The value of an aircraft carrier in Auckland, he suggests, would be to let people judge for themselves. The value of the 1987 Act, its defenders would say, is precisely that New Zealand already made that judgement and has stuck to it.
The exchange is a reminder that foreign policy rarely stays out of an election year. With a general election due on 7 November, voters will be weighing not only the cost of living and health and education, but also how the parties want to handle a more demanding United States and a more contested Pacific. Anyone wanting to see where the parties line up on these questions can compare their positions using the Newswire voting tool.
Novelly’s arrival, and his early willingness to raise the nuclear question, suggests Washington intends to press its case in Wellington more openly than it has for years. Whether that changes any minds is another matter. The early signs are that the ambassador has run straight into a wall that both the government and much of the opposition are happy to keep standing.
What do you think, should New Zealand keep its nuclear-free law exactly as it is, or is it time to talk about ship visits again? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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