NZ's Russian sanctions a step forward, but it's far too constrained

The Russia Sanctions Bill is welcome, but one big questions has to be asked. 

Why only have sanctions that can be applied to Russia including those backing Russia (like Belarus)? Why can it not be generic to enable sanctions against any state that egregiously invades another that is either a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council or an ally of it? The People's Republic of China is the obvious example, but it is entirely possible that China or Russia might veto sanctions against the DPRK, or Iran, or Syria. 

Sure, it is complicating that the People's Republic of China has quite a free trade agreement with New Zealand, but is the Ardern Government that enamoured with the UN Security Council that it wont empower itself to impose sanctions at little notice in the event of a similarly attack elsewhere.

Is it not more powerful to have an autonomous sanctions bill that can be applied as required? 

Hopefully this legislation will get passed quickly and NZ can join the rest of the civilised world in sanctioning the Russian state, Russian politicians and businesses.  However, the entire performance over this shows how weak willed and morally unsure the Ardern Government is when facing real aggressive war, especially when it tries to show off how much it wants "disarmament" with Minister Twyford.

Nearly a year ago he made a speech about disarmament.  It's so utterly full of vapid platitudes that are almost sickening:

It would be comforting to think that, thanks to our rebelliousness in the 80s, and our relentless global advocacy ever since, nuclear weapons were no longer a threat to everything we hold dear.

Do you seriously think that NZ's anti-nuclear policy has had a remote impact at all on reducing the threats of nuclear war? 

How about this:

Youth are the ones whose futures are stolen by the countless billions of dollars spent on weapons every year that could be invested in health, education, and environmental protection if we had a more peaceful world.  

Well I think there are millions of youth in Ukraine who right now wish that much MORE was spent on their defence. Do serious people think defence spending occurs in a vacuum? Most of Europe has benign relations with war unthinkable, but that wasn't achieved by peace activism, it was achieved by having a continent of open free liberal democracies with mutual interests.

The rest of it is nice hippie like platitudes, but that is all. It's utterly without value, and offers nothing to confront those who regard human life as expendable. The value of peace is very little if you don't value freedom and the autonomy of people to be free from aggression.

and NZ does next to nothing to deter aggression, anywhere.