If you listen to what Winston Peters is saying today, it sounds a hell of a lot like he’s keen to get us involved in AUKUS- the alliance between Australia, the UK and the US, which involves the Aussies buying those nuclear subs.

Clearly, AUKUS is coming up in the discussions that he and Judith Collins are having with their counterparts over in Australia today.

Now he was on Sky News this morning, and the host pointed out that Jacinda Ardern didn’t seem to love the idea of AUKUS, given that she reaffirmed NZ's ban on nuclear powered vessels and that that would definitely apply to the Aussie subs.

And then the host asked Winston if he had a problem with them as well.

And Winston said- "Well I don't know why you’re quoting the previous Prime Minister who gave up after all... but on these issues, the then-Prime Minister displayed an enormous lack of understanding or lack of clarity."

Shots fired!

But listen to what he’s saying, he disagrees with Jacinda and he sounds keen on AUKUS. And actually the more I read about it, the more I think I agree with him.

Anyone who believes there is no reason for us to join an alliance like AUKUS needs to stop being naïve about what's happening in the world.

If the risk of war was a temperature setting on an oven, the dial has been moved up quite a lot in just the last few weeks.

Governments across Europe are warning of war. The Germans, the Swedes- the UK head of army spoke about maybe needing conscription, for goodness sake.

• The ideal outcomes from foreign and defence meeting between New Zealand and Australia
• Winston Peters and Judith Collins land in Melbourne

Maybe they’re being alarmist for their own ends, but maybe they’re right. There are after all two significant wars going on at the moment in the Ukraine and the Middle East that could spiral with one ill-considered action.

Never mind the considerable build up of Chinese warships and planes near Taiwan just in the last few days.

There's a debate about whether AUKUS even wants us- maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves asking to be included. But if they do want us, I think we should want them too.

We need to get real about how worried Governments are about the world’s temperature right now.

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