Nauru flight defended

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has defended having an Air Force Boeing 757 fly back from Nauru after dropping off Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to collect her and deliver her to the Pacific Islands Forum on the island for one day.

The round trip comes at a cost of $80,000 on fuel alone.

While Peters and a contingent flew to Nauru, around five and a half hours’ from New Zealand, yesterday, Ardern will go tomorrow for the leaders’ retreat.

The Prime Minister is still breastfeeding her 11-week-old daughter Neve, who does not have immunity to visit an environment like Nauru. “I spent quite a lot of time deliberating over whether or not I would attend the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru. I analysed all of my options,” Ardern said yesterday.

She made a decision that she would fly to Nauru early tomorrow, necessitating the return of the 757 to New Zealand to pick her up instead of flying one hour on to the Marshall Islands to await the return flight tomorrow. There is no room on Nauru for all the planes that will be bringing Pacific ministers and leaders for the forum so the planes go on to the Marshall Islands to wait. “The other option was for me not attend at all but, given the importance that we place on the relationships with the Pacific Islands in the reset, that equally didn’t feel like an option.”

Ardern said she was told the 757 had to leave Nauru, and that it needed to clock up a certain number of flying hours anyway.