COMMENTARY: By Liz Remmerswaal

Up to 1000 people joined a March for Peace in Auckland last weekend to demand that Aotearoa New Zealand become a voice for peace rather than a complicit partner in US-led illegal wars.

The march on June 20 was organised by a new group, Anti-War Aotearoa (AWA), and Greenpeace Aotearoa, and stopped outside the US Consulate en route because it is important that the New Zealand government refuses any “war mineral” deals with the Trump administration.

The groups are urging the government to implement a fully independent foreign policy grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, diplomacy, and international law.

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Niamh O’Flynn, programme director at Greenpeace Aotearoa, said the nation’s environmental and international priorities were fundamentally linked.

“We oppose [NZ Prime Minister Christopher] Luxon and the coalition government allowing Aotearoa to be drawn into Trump’s wars, and we strongly oppose the minerals deal being negotiated to fuel those wars,” said O’Flynn.

“We call for an independent foreign policy in Aotearoa that prioritises peace, upholds the UN Charter, and supports the wellbeing of people and the planet. We must not sell off Aotearoa’s natural places to the highest bidding war-monger.”

A spokesperson for Anti-War Aotearoa (AWA) said the march was a necessary public response to escalating imperial aggression, the erosion of international law, and a “dangerous shift in domestic priorities”.

“We are marching because Aotearoa needs to become a voice for peace and reason in an increasingly unstable world, rather than acting as a supporting player in these illegal, foreign wars,” AWA spokesperson Gabriella Brayne said.

“We demand that the New Zealand government places immediate sanctions on Israel to end the genocide in Gaza, gets fully behind the ICC [International Criminal Court] and ICJ [International Court of Justice] cases against war crimes, and pulls public funding from militarisation so it can be invested into health, housing, and education,” said Brayne.

Liz Remmerswaal Hughes is a mother, journalist, environmentalist activist and former local government politician in Aotearoa New Zealand and is World BEYOND War NZ coordinator. This article was first published by World BEYOND War on 25 June 2026 and is republished with the author’s permission.