So has he ever apologised to Peters for that tweet?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I think we understand each other pretty well,\u201d says Penk. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe great thing about Winston is he\u2019s got an excellent sense of humour.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those that used to engage with him on Twitter, as X was then, was Neale Jones, a former chief of staff to Andrew Little and Jacinda Ardern, and a regular political commentator.<\/p>\n
Jones remembers tweeting to point out something Penk had got wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally politicians will get very defensive or just ignore you. But he actually reached out privately and said \u2018hey, I didn\u2019t mean to get that wrong and actually I don\u2019t like to say things that are untrue so can you send the information through to me and I\u2019ll correct it.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought at the time, even though he was someone I didn\u2019t agree with politically on a lot of things, I did admire his integrity there.\u201d<\/p>\n
When National formed the Government in November 2023, Penk was made a junior minister outside Cabinet as Veterans Minister, with an associate role in Defence, but his main portfolio was Building and Construction.<\/p>\n
Over two years, he brought attention to the portfolio in a way that hasn\u2019t been done since Shane Jones suggested regulations for showerheads to limit water use in 2008.<\/p>\n
Penk changed the building consent system, reformed the earthquake-prone building code, made 40,000 building products more accessible to tradies, and allowed granny flats to be built without consent.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has done a lot of micro reform that isn\u2019t glamorous stuff,\u201d said Neale Jones. \u201cBut just makes it easier to get things done and built.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something I\u2019ve observed and been reasonably impressed with. He has been effective at getting on with it and making it a more efficient system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Penk at Devonport Naval Base last month making a Budget announcement. <\/p>\n
In the Herald\u2019s last Cabinet report card,<\/a> Penk was among three ministers with the high score of 9, mainly for his work in Building and Construction.<\/p>\n His old boss, former National leader Simon Bridges, who now heads the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, said he had heard feedback on Penk\u2019s recent engagement with business.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s actually at the better end of ministers because he listens genuinely, he engages authentically, the audiences like him. And frankly that\u2019s not true of all ministers.\u201d<\/p>\n He had heard feedback from one high-end business event recently that Penk hadn\u2019t answered a question particularly well.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he was straight down afterwards to the group who had asked the question to say he appreciated he had not answered it well.\u201d<\/p>\n Bridges said Penk in his first term had a tendency to over-complicate issues. <\/p>\n There were a few \u201crough edges\u201d and \u201cyouthful nerdiness that needed to be shaped up a bit.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he has greatly improved over time. And that is the hallmark of the best politicians. They don\u2019t stay still. They are like a good wine and they improve over time.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has kept the affability, but he has added some polish and some heft.\u201d<\/p>\n Penk doesn\u2019t always get it right. <\/p>\n He got himself into bother in Singapore recently answering a question from a Bloomberg journalist about whether New Zealand should change its laws banning nuclear-propelled vessels \u2013 as well as nuclear weapons \u2013 in light of Australia\u2019s plans to acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and Britain. <\/p>\n After assuring the interviewer that there were no plans to change the policy, he said such a conversation would be helpful. <\/p>\n Penk accepts he could have expressed himself better, but he is sticking by his answer, suggesting people missed the context of Australia\u2019s Aukus deal for nuclear-powered subs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do need to think about the implications of that, not because we need to change our position, but because we need to understand that we\u2019re going to be more vulnerable without the protection of our only formal ally, at least in a subsurface sense.\u201d <\/p>\n Penk was at the Shangri-La Dialogue \u2013 the annual defence and security conference attended by Defence Minister and military brass from around the world. <\/p>\n It gave him the chance to hold meetings with his political counterparts from Australia, Richard Marles; the United States, Pete Hegseth; Britain, John Healey who last week resigned based on underfunding; the Philippines, Gilberto Teodoro jr; Italy, Guido Crosetto; Norway, Tore O Sandvik; Japan, Koizumi Shinjiro; Malaysia, Mohamed Khaled bin Nordin; Vietnam, General Phan Van Giang; the Netherlands, Dilan Ye\u015filg\u00f6z-Zegerius; and Singapore, Chan Chun Singh.<\/p>\n He also met defence secretaries from Germany, Nils Hilmer; and India, Rajesh Kumar Singh; and US Senators Tammy Duckworth and Pete Ricketts.<\/p>\n Unusually, Penk is an expert in submarines, having served for about four years on the HMAS Sheean sub in the Australian Navy, based in Perth. It was a Collins-class diesel-electric submarine, the sort being replaced by the Aukus plan.<\/p>\n It was about 77m long and 8m wide with about 50 crew and fairly cramped quarters. In his early days, he slept in a room off the galley that he shared with a sack of onions and was later upgraded to a room shared with torpedoes. <\/p>\n Penk, who got Australian citizenship a short time after joining the Navy, was a navigating officer and the longest he was continuously underwater was 51 days.<\/p>\n \u201cI would map us through the ocean, do the navigation, and also be on the periscope. That\u2019s sort of an exercise in seeing what else is out there and avoiding hitting it.\u201d<\/p>\n He had no problem with claustrophobia.<\/p>\n \u201cI think if you\u2019re claustrophobic, you wouldn\u2019t go into that environment.\u201d <\/p>\n Yes, he has been on a nuclear-powered submarine. He vaguely remembers it was a British one, visiting Australia. But he hasn\u2019t crewed on one.<\/p>\n Before serving in Australia, he had already served as a navigator in the New Zealand Navy for four years.<\/p>\n At the age of 21, he found himself steering the frigate Te Kaha through the South China Seas in an exercise with the Five Power Defence Pact. He also visited Shanghai on Te Kaha, about 40 nautical miles up the Yangtze River.<\/p>\n He served as an aide-de-camp with Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, having reached the rank of lieutenant. <\/p>\n \u201cI see people now who\u2019ve got a lot more gold than I ever had on my shoulders, and they call me minister and I have to work hard not to call them \u2018sir\u2019 in the hierarchical way that you get beaten into you.\u201d<\/p>\n Penk is one of five boys in his family. Before joining the New Zealand Navy, he was educated at Kelston Boys High and got a BA from Auckland University. After his submarine service, he went back to study law and had set up his own commercial practice before entering politics.<\/p>\n He not only acquired defence from Collins when she left to head the Law Commission, he took over her space portfolio and ministerial responsibility for the spy agencies, the SIS and the GCSB, which is part of the Five Eyes intelligence network.<\/p>\n He has already approved the deployment of New Zealand Defence personnel to Poland to Operation Legio, a Norwegian-led multinational project to train Ukrainians closer to Ukraine than the current UK trainers in Operation Interflex.<\/p>\n Penk doesn\u2019t believe there will be any great difference in his approach to defence, compared with Collins. <\/p>\n The main change would be in the circumstances under which the next decisions were made under the Defence Capability Plan, a plan to acquire $12 billion of assets over four years.<\/p>\n If the coalition keeps power and Penk keeps defence, the plan will include taking a recommendation to Cabinet on what to replace Anzac frigates Te Kaha and Te Mana with.<\/p>\n Given the increased emphasis on integration with Australia\u2019s Defence Force, all signs point to Japan\u2019s Mogami class because it is what Australia has just ordered.<\/p>\n But whether it is for leverage or not, Penk insists that is not a foregone conclusion. <\/p>\n \u201cAustralia\u2019s acquisition of those is a major consideration, but it\u2019s not the only consideration.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can imagine that there would be decisions there, weighing the relative value that each of those platforms would provide and that\u2019s a level of detail that I\u2019m not yet exposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n Australia, New Zealand and the United States were part of the 1951 Anzus security alliance until the US suspended New Zealand over its anti-nuclear policy and then laws in the 1980s.<\/p>\n Australia and the United States remain formal allies under Anzus and Australia remains a formal ally of Australia.<\/p>\n But how would Penk describe New Zealand\u2019s relationship with the United States: allies, partners or very, very, very good friends?<\/p>\n While he had heard \u201cthe A word\u201d used recently, the term ally usually related to a security agreement whereby partners were \u201cobliged and expected to come to the aid of others, no questions asked, in the event of a military intervention by a third party. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd we don\u2019t have that relationship currently with the US because Aukus is not active in terms of US and New Zealand, sorry Anzus.\u201d <\/p>\n The reference to \u201cthe A-word\u201d was contained in a press statement by the State Department in early June when it announced it had approved the possible sale of five MH-60R Multi-Mission Helicopters (Seahawks) to New Zealand for US$1.5 billion ($2.57b).<\/p>\n \u201cThis proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by improving the security of a major ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Asia-Pacific region.\u201d<\/p>\n The State Department clarified that in a statement to the Herald, saying there was no change in policy.<\/p>\n \u201cUS treaty obligations to New Zealand under the Anzus treaty remain suspended.\u201d<\/p>\n The use of the term \u201cmajor ally\u201d had a technical meaning under 1996 US law in the context of foreign military sales, and included many countries that did not have a treaty alliance with the United States.<\/p>\n Integral to the Defence Capability Plan is the goal to increase New Zealand\u2019s Defence spending to 2% of GDP<\/a> by 2032-33 and the Seahawk sale is part of that.<\/p>\nHerald cartoonist Rod Emmerson’s take on the Penk gaffe at the Shangri-La Dialogue last month.<\/p>\n
Chris Penk served for four years on the HMAS Sheean submarine in the Australian Navy.<\/p>\n
Chris Penk spent four years in the New Zealand Navy.<\/p>\n