PM measures up to diplomatic challenge
Jacinda Ardern faced a number of challenges on her first international outing to Apec and the East Asia Summit as Prime Minister.
Foreign affairs is not her forte. She didn’t grow up on a diet of the Guardian Weekly as Helen Clark probably did.
She doesn’t possess the supreme lack of self-doubt of leaders such as Justin Trudeau.
Experience is not on her side, and many of the leaders come from societies slow to recognise the value of women — let alone young women.
But as Ardern finished her Apec and East Asia Summit there are signs the newcomer will put a strong mark on the foreign affairs part of her job.
Her positioning on Australia’s refugee crisis is a break from NZ Governments saying nothing to offend their neighbour — unless it directly relates to New Zealanders.
When she went to Sydney to meet Australian leader Malcolm Turnbull, she said no more nor less than a National Prime Minister would have. But since then she has determinedly kept the issue alive.
It has not been done in a reckless way, though it was probably a mistake to say she wanted a “substantive” meeting with Turnbull about Manus.
The lack of a “substantive meeting” has become a snub.
She has not directly criticised Canberra over Manus, framing it instead as nagging refrain to want to help.
Australia’s choices were to give Ardern the courtesy of an informal meeting in Manila to talk it through — something Turnbull has done with John Key at previous summits; to ignore the issue; or to react badly — as has happened.
Australia has leaked against NZ by suggesting intelligence has picked up “chatter” by people smugglers wanting to go to NZ — with the finger of blame pointed at Ardern.
It suggests a larger country that’s so used to NZ singing in unison that when it goes slightly off-script, Canberra seeks to undermine it.
It also marks out Ardern as a PM who does not plan to be a satellite of Australia.
National leader Bill English’s criticism that Ardern is putting on a show about an offer she knows Australia will reject would be valid if Australia actually had rejected it.
But that is not the case. There is every indication that it may be taken up after the deal to send some refugees to the United States is completed.
The only thing that has changed is the urgency with which the refugee detention issue needs to be addressed.
One of the trip’s most impressive aspects was how Ardern and David Parker politically managed the TPP issue while in Vietnam.
They decided to front-foot problems with the deal and not wait for rumours to trickle out. When the revised TPP11’s details were unveiled, they told Mfat experts to answer any questions they could and Parker made himself available for a backgrounder and interviews.