New Zealand-Australia Defence Relations: Renewing the original intent

by Jim Rolfe

Two statements bookend the New Zealand-Australia defence relationship. They say much the same thing. In 1890, at the Australasian Federation Conference, New Zealand delegate and Minister of Defence William Russell noted that: ‘New Zealand has a large sea-coast…, and we should be only too happy…to join with Australia in any system of naval defence’. Russell was, in this speech, quite explicitly rejecting assimilation in any form and promoting harmonisation of relevant laws and cooperation (including naval) between agencies as the sensible alternative.

In 2026, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, when asked if New Zealand and Australian armed forces would be more aligned in the future replied: ‘absolutely… ‘we’ve already started that process’. Alignment leads to the ability to work together when required, the basis of any cooperative relationship.

The causes and consequences of the current moves towards ‘closer alignment’ are easy to see. Increased global instability, major power interest in the two countries’ shared region, and a sense that armed force will remain necessary to resolve international problems all play a part. So too does the history of shared and cooperative defence relationships.

The external environment has led to a renewed domestic focus on defence issues and a distinct increase in public rhetoric around defence capabilities and the appropriate or necessary bilateral defence relationship. The language is tied to the current government, but in practice, if not in rhetoric, the substance has not changed over the years and will not change in the future.

None of this is new. The modern defence relationship between the countries came of age in 1944 with the signing of the Canberra Pact, more formally the Australian-New Zealand Agreement. In his address to Parliament on the subject, Prime Minister Peter Fraser emphasised that the objectives were ‘collaboration and co-operation, for a fuller exchange of information, for consultation before expressing views elsewhere…but, where unity of opinion cannot be achieved, then there shall be a friendly agreement to differ’.

The agreement, although now outdated and rarely referred to in substantive terms, established the principle of policy and operational defence cooperation between Australia and New Zealand, especially in relation to the South and Southwest Pacific. The principle holds today, although the specific activities noted in the Agreement have generally not been developed beyond the initial statements of intent.

In practice, a formal and systematic political relationship has existed between the defence establishments bilaterally since the late 1960s, and before that (from 1952) through the ANZUS Council, with more or less annual meetings of ministers and their senior defence officials.

The 1991 ‘Closer Defence Relations’ initiative continues to be the formal description of how the countries will relate to each other in the military sphere. The rhetoric surrounding CDR has been reiterated and formally refined several times since then, but it has not changed in detail. CDR’s guiding principles are of sovereignty, shared interests, openness, cooperation and practical collaboration.

Formal meetings and associated statements have been a feature of the recent past. Foreign and defence ministers of the two countries met as a group in early 2024 at the ANZMIN 2+2 meeting; the first such meeting and one which is to be an annual event. In March 2026, the two countries signed the ‘ANZAC 2035’ statement. This gave a vision of the armed forces being able to work together in an ‘increasingly seamless and integrated combat-capable Anzac force by 2035’, while remaining respectful of their individual sovereign status.

The supports for a closer working relationship are already in place. The 2025 Defence Capability Plan makes multiple references to becoming ‘more integrated with our ally Australia, making both countries stronger’. (Integration in this sense refers to the capability to work together in a combined setting rather than through political control.) Business cases for defence capability now must answer as the first question: ‘What is the Australian approach, and is there any reason for New Zealand to take a different approach?’ Signals can get no clearer.

Each of the military services is conforming to this vision of cooperation and interoperability, and working with its Australian counterpart within separate structural frameworks, but with a common approach to the relationship.

The Army approach is the most formally structured. In the years since the 1990s, the Army had, for a variety of reasons, started to follow an ‘orphan doctrine’ that was a mixture of ideas: some elements developed locally and others learnt internationally. In 2022, the Chief of the NZ Army directed the Army to realign and to conform with Australian Army doctrine.

In 2023, Plan ANZAC formalised this approach by laying out comprehensive principles and processes to bring the two armies more closely together. The realignment was both to ensure that any doctrinal gaps between Australia and New Zealand disappeared and to manage resources more effectively.

The Air Forces have a 2024 Joint Guidance Statement that ‘reinforces and enhances the two countries’ enduring commitment and co-operation with each other in military aviation’. The symbolic representation of the relationship was the appointment of a senior RNZAF officer to be Deputy Air Commander in Australia. In practice, the two air forces have always been able to operate together when necessary.

The two navies also work together when appropriate. Naval cooperation, in the words of the 2024 statement on CDR, is ‘underpinned by complementary strategies’, and ‘both navies maximise operation of common or complementary systems to optimise combined training and interoperability of our maritime capabilities’. As with the other two services, the navies also have no difficulties working together when necessary.

These initiatives do no more than confirm the rhetoric. Since the end of WW II, the two armed forces have routinely worked closely together, normally seamlessly, on operations, both as an Anzac force and as individual components within a larger UN, Commonwealth, or coalition of the willing formation. The operational capabilities are supported by routine and regular unit training exercises and by individual personnel exchanges to ensure that the compatibility of national approaches is understood at all levels.

It has been no accident that the armed forces can work closely together and that each can work within a wider allied grouping. The so-called ‘Five Eyes’ countries (Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, with New Zealand as a later joiner in many cases), have had a formal relationship between the individual armed forces since the end of WW II. These are known separately (and, of course, using military acronyms) as AUSCANNZUKUS for the navies, ABCANZ for the armies and AFIC for the air forces.

These single-service groupings sit alongside many other five-country defence relationships covering, for example, defence communications, defence science and technology, defence personnel matters, and defence digital technology. In all cases, the intent and the outcome are to learn from each other, to standardise operational procedures where sensible, and to ensure interoperability when necessary.

The wider relationships are important. They give additional substance to the Australia-New Zealand relationship and allow the two countries, where sensible, to operate easily as a combined force.

But the bilateral relationship is the core. And that brings us back to the question of how to get closer, as current rhetoric demands, when in practical terms closeness is already achievable whenever that is needed.

The answer lies not in any framework of ad hoc cooperation in day-to-day operations, no matter how important they may be, but in the supporting structures. And those supporting structures are weak. We have noted that ministers and senior officers meet at least annually in bilateral forums and participate in a range of multilateral activities. But those are the kinds of formal relationships that any two countries can develop without much effort. There is nothing other than routine staff processes to support those formal meetings.

What is needed is a return to the vision of the relationship in 1944. The Canberra Pact envisaged, and the governments agreed, that there would be ‘continuous consultation’ on all defence matters of mutual interest, joint planning, a common doctrine for organisation, equipment and training, and an interchange of staff. Some of that exists, especially in terms of doctrine, although doctrinal matters have more to do with the five-country relationships than with the bilateral links.

A model for a revitalised Anzac policy infrastructure could be a combination of the current ministerial-level meetings at the apex, supported by senior military staff exchanges as managers of the detail of the bilateral relationship. These positions could be in both the policy headquarters and the joint operations centres, to cover the full potential of the relationship. A range of working groups along the lines of the five-country approach, but dealing with specifically bilateral interests, should be developed on an ad hoc or permanent basis as necessary to take bilateral issues to mutually agreed conclusions.

As well, there are more areas in which the two countries could cooperate on a routine operational basis. Why not think of a combined maritime surveillance centre for the Tasman? Or the maintenance of a skeleton headquarters, with the role of developing combined contingency plans and the ability to act as a basis for a deployable combined headquarters if required? Or the periodic establishment of a combined naval task group for operations in the South Pacific or further afield, controlled by the combined headquarters?

The possibilities are wide, but they require imagination and resolve to make them work.

It is clear that the Australian relationship needs to be seen as fundamental. It is independent of other international groupings, but it operates within the broader context of multinational defence relationships, especially those involving the five traditional partners. The five-country grouping is the strategic superstructure that allows the operational and tactical bilateral relationship to function easily.

The short-term issue may well be one of re-invigorating the military relationship between the countries, but that is a means to two quite different ends. The first end is operational. It is to ensure that the forces can work together effectively whenever required. The second, perhaps more important, strategic end is to maintain the long-term relationships and ability to work with the traditional partners and with other like-minded countries. That is a by-product of the operational relationship and of the existing international systems.

The article was first published in Line of Defence Magazine.

Dr Jim Rolfe is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies, Victoria University of Wellington. A former New Zealand Army officer and public servant, he is a past Deputy Director of the Australian Civil-Military Centre.