Foreign Minister Winston Peters says there's been a "vacuum" in foreign affairs in the Pacific for the last three years.
Speaking at a United States Business Summit in Auckland, Peters, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, told the audience: "We're a country just north of the penguins, and it's high time we started taking this issue a darn sight more seriously in every respect.
"There is much work ahead of us, the time for drift is over, and the coalition has hit the ground running."
Responding to a question about New Zealand's approach to engagement with the Pacific, Peters, who was previously Foreign Minister between 2017 and 2020, said: "I'm alarmed, [to] put my cards on the table, at the vacuum that's developed in the last three years.
"It's palpable, it's there, it's regrettable and we have to turn that around as fast as we possible can."
The pair were part of a high-powered gathering aimed at increasing trade and economic ties with the US.
Peters said "speed and intensity" is needed to take the US-NZ relationship further, adding his top priority is to "get the money to do the job" and to get the right team around him.
"There are few relationships that matter more to New Zealand, than our relationship with the United States," he said in a speech. "We have repeatedly worked together in times of international crises and in the face of major global challenges, and we will continue to do so.
"The manner in which the US has engaged with our region has been instrumental in the Pacific's success – but there is more to do and not a moment to lose. We will not achieve our shared ambitions if we allow time to drift.
"We need to raise the energy and intensity we bring to this important relationship, and that is what we intend to do.
"We know moving with the speed and intensity required to meet current challenges is going to require all of us to step up – and the good news is that New Zealand stands ready to play its part."
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon made similar comments in his address to the crowd.
"I want us to be very open, we have to be externally oriented," he said.
"The country's been in a very inward-looking state over the last six years and we've been very myopic and very inward-looking and not very ambitious, and – as I've often said – playing I think quite a negative game.
"I don't think we've been engaging out there in the world in the way that we should and that we can and that we have maybe in our past."
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