Judith Collins: Defence Minister on whether the Defence Force is prepared to evacuate Kiwis from war-torn Middle East

It's still unclear when our Defence Force will be able to evacuate New Zealanders out of war-afflicted areas in the Middle East.

Kiwis there are being urged to alert SafeTravel, with 3000 already registered in the region.

Defence Minister Judith Collins says our planes will leave in the coming days and will take people to safer nearby areas, when conditions allow.

She says they're prepared to take thousands if necessary.

"Well, if they wanted to go, we would simply have to make it happen, but we would obviously have to do it in relays." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's telling kiwis in the Middle East to register
on safe travel and preparation of evacuation. Two Defense Force
aircraft will be leaving New Zealand in the coming days
to help those Kiwis and Judith Collins is the defenseman
to stand with us. Hi, Judith oh Hid, how many
Keywis do you think you're going to have to move?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, we know that there are around three thousand who
have registered on safe travel, which is obviously the Minister
of Foreign Affairs or in FATS website, but we think
that there are probably thousands more, so that the movement
will be out of the danger zone into another country

(00:39):
relatively close by that is not in danger at the moment.
It won't be all the way back here. Yep. We
can't bring people all the way back here now.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Could you even move from one place to a nearby
place three thousand people?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, if they want to go, we would simply have
to make it happen, but we would have to obviously
do it in relays and we have to deal with
it that way. I think you'll find quite a lot
of people will not want to move because they're based
now in the Middle East, and for those who do
we are making this available now?

Speaker 1 (01:16):
How long are we preparing as a country for this
particular war that's going on at the moment to last.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, we don't know how long it's going to last, Heather.
We haven't been involved in the build up to it,
we're not involved in the discussions around it, we're not
involved in supplying anything for it. What we are thinking
about though, is that for New Zealanders who do want
to leave, that's we want to make sure we can
help them to do that if that's possible without unduly

(01:44):
putting our own defense people at an extreme harm's way.
So and also in fact people too, I shouldn't forget them.
But there's also the fact that we're obviously aware of
the Straits of her May almost and how Iran is
now sending missiles off to neighboring countries. So we're very

(02:05):
aware of these issues. We've dealt with it before with
the Houthis who were part of the funded out of
Iran attacks on ships going through the Red Sea. So
we've dealt with some unrest over the years. But we're
not sure how long it's going to go on for Are.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
We going to put any equipment or people into this war.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
I think we need to be very realistic here, Heather.
We're number one, a hell of a long way away,
but number two you can see the equipment that's going
on being used. Now, what are we going to send, well,
a trainer plane or hercules to do what? We can
send a Hercules to go and bring people out. But

(02:50):
let's be real here. It's not a war that we
were part of the decision making on, and it's not
a war where we've been asked to do anything at all.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
OK, thanks very much, look after yourself, Judith Collins, Defense Minister.
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