Ardern’s Aussie charm offensive
New Zealand Inc was in high gear when Jacinda Ardern flew into Australia for talks with Malcolm Turnbull.
Ardern arrived with a bevy of ministers and officials and a 34-strong business delegation.
The New Zealand offensive had already kicked off with an Australian stock exchange event for about 250 investors.
Opened by Economic Development Minister David Parker, the aim was to raise the profile of New Zealand-based companies listed on the ASX.
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters had also flown over early for a speech talking up New Zealand and Australian ties and promising a ‘‘reset’’ of New Zealand’s Pacific policy.
His promise of a step up in aid and diplomacy in the region should help smooth tensions across the Tasman after Ardern hit a nerve by elevating the plight of its Nauru refugees.
The Aussies have long felt that they are doing all the heavy lifting in the Pacific and don’t get enough credit for it. There was a hint of that in Turnbull’s tetchy response about New Zealand ‘‘stepping up’’ after questions about the reset.
It should be no surprise that Parker and Peters were in the advance guard for Ardern’s Aussie charm offensive.
There was a lot of negative coverage in Australian media over the election result and National’s ousting.
The Key-English government was feted across the Tasman for its economic record – and the change of government was widely perceived as a backward step.
The Ardern trip was an opportunity to fly the flag for the message that New Zealand is still open for business.
The presence of ministers like Parker and Peters also stresses the underlying message that it’s largely business as usual in trans-Tasman relations.
Two of Ardern’s most experienced ministers, Parker and Peters are emerging as key members of a powerhouse group of ministers.
The other is Finance Minister Grant Robertson, whose mini budget before Christmas delivering the Government’s family package, deftly hit all the right political notes.
But others are stepping up to join that group – notably Justice Minister Andrew Little and Housing Minister Phil Twyford. Between them, they are putting some distance behind the images of Labour’s shambolic years in opposition.
National’s mistake may be in failing to recognise the big shift in gear – especially now that it has drawn a line under the Key-English era.
The change in National’s circumstances was underscored when new National leader Simon Bridges flew across the Tasman separately to attend the leadership forum where Ardern and Turnbull addressed several hundred business leaders.
Bridges’ predecessor Bill English would likely have received almost a hero’s welcome in his place. As it was Turnbull couldn’t help but give a shout out to former prime minister Sir John Key in his speech to the forum, crediting him with a role in getting the stalled trans Pacific Partnership agreement back on track.
But Bridges will be almost as much of an unknown quantity as many of the Labour MPs attending the forum as ministers for the first time.
And while the relationship between Turnbull and Ardern may not match the Key-Turnbull bromance, the cosy imagery of their Point Piper dinner date was designed to send the message that the trans-Tasman relationship is strong enough to make up for that.
That’s not all that has changed. National is now in new territory and the next three years will determine how much of its legacy under Key and English remains.
If history repeats – and it has a habit of doing that in politics – it could just as easily be erased by three years of infighting and leadership instability.
Ardern was no doubt genuine when she sympathised last week with the next National leader for having the worst job in politics.
But no one missed the irony. Ardern’s rise to power was so dramatic she was spared the misery of being leader of the Opposition for more than a few short weeks.
National MPs are still hurting over that apparent injustice.
Even English, Parliament’s Mr Nice Guy, couldn’t let it go before bowing out for good on Thursday.
English referred to politics being a place ‘‘where you get great opportunities without having to earn them and they can be taken away just as easily’’.
No prizes for guessing who he was talking about.
English still doesn’t ‘‘get it’’ that National lost the election. A lot of his MPs don’t get it either. But the last One News Colmar Brunton Poll, putting Labour ahead of National, shook them out of their complacency.
All the talk after the election was about the next three years being a good time to sit it out, and how they they dodged a bullet by not going into coalition with Peters.
But that’s all flown out the window. English was the lifeline to National’s golden era under Key, a leader who offered them the illusion that normal transmission would eventually resume.
But the next election won’t be a case of voters just hitting the reset button to get back to normal.
National will look like a very different party to the one that was in government for the last nine years, and Labour after three years in government will look like a very different party to the one that was marooned in Opposition for nine years.
There was an almost visceral reaction in some quarters of the party to new leader Simon Bridges first days in the job and his failure to land any blows on Ardern.
You could almost hear the thud of reality hitting home in the National caucus that Opposition may be just as hard as Labour made it look for all those years.