I have argued before that New Zealand and Australia might combine their defence forces, providing New Zealand pulled its weight and did not lean on Australia as it does at present (and spent more than the present 1 per cent of GDP on defence). However, New Zealand’s betrayal of Israel at the UN Security Council tells against this: it suggests that, at least at present, Australia and New Zealand do not have basic common values, not even, in New Zealand’s case, a commitment to democracy and to the one democratic country in the Middle East.