What Jacinda Ardern Plans to Tell Australian Prime Minister
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will meet new Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week, and she says there is a lot to discuss. Ms Ardern has a big agenda for her first encounter with Mr Morrison whom she will meet at the East Asia Summit hosted by Singapore this year.
“We’re doing some work on exporters moving into the Australian market, so there’s some real positives there to talk about, and just regional issues,” she told a press conference, when pressed on what she will discuss with the Australian PM.
“There will continue to be issues round citizenship, deportation, [and] the positive elements amongst our relationship,” she added. Ms Ardern used her first overseas trip as New Zealand Prime Minister to push former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on New Zealand’s offer to take refugees, and will likely bring it up with Mr Morrison at the first opportunity. “Our Prime Minister has an offer [to take] 150 asylum seekers from Nauru or Manus Island - it’s quite possible he would accept that offer,” Waikato University professor Al Gillespie told Newshub in August.
Mr Morrison came to power in August after ousting former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The Liberal Party MP won the party room vote to become the country’s 30th Prime Minister, after a controversial leadership battle. The East Asia Summit, where Ms Ardern and Mr Morrison will meet, represents more than half of the world’s population and 58 per cent of global growth.
It is centred around the 10 member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Among the attendees will be US Vice President Mike Pence, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Key issues to be discussed at the summit include escalating trade tensions between the US and China, and progress on a 16-country free trade deal known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Last year, the East Asia Summit was held in the Philippines. The Prime Minister will also attend the APEC summit in Papua New Guinea this weekend.
It was at the 2017 APEC summit in Vietnam where Ms Ardern first met US President Donald Trump.