Niggling differences on China testing NZAustralia relationship
AUCKLAND: Australia is finally treating Kiwis equally — all New Zealanders in detention awaiting deportation will get the Covid19 vaccine, the same as everyone else in Australia.
It wasn’t the fair treatment that Jacinda Ardern had in mind when she publicly admonished Scott Morrison on the lawn of Admiralty House almost a year ago for unfair treatment of Kiwis in Australia.
Ardern broke the unstated rule between Australia and New Zealand that they might go hammer and tongs behind closed doors but they never criticise each other publicly.
Within hours of Ardern’s public faceslap, attention had been diverted to the first New Zealand case of Covid19.
But New Zealand certainly has no comeback when Australia decides to get prickly, as Morrison did twice this week.
In a press conference, he compared New Zealand’s slow rollout of the Covid19 vaccine scheduled to begin in April with Australia’s fasttracked programme which is scheduled to get under way later this month. And why wouldn’t he?
New Zealand ministers have repeatedly compared New Zealand’s surprising economic resilience with less favourable figures in Australia’s.
Covid19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has also expressed scepticism on several occasions about Australia’s fasttrack programme eventuating.
It will be galling for Australia if New Zealand manages to piggyback on the fasttracked delivery and get some early doses from Pfizer as well.
Covid has complicated the relationship, requiring greater cooperation between the two countries but also opening up fronts for political friction.
Covid19related strains will be temporary, however. Fundamentally, both countries have confidence in the other’s systems to minimise border incursions and to deal with Covid outbreaks.
The more serious criticism occurred when Morrison was asked in an interview with Sky about New Zealand not signing the latest Five Eyes statement on Hong Kong after the arrest of 55 democracy activists under China’s national security law.
Morrison said liberal democracies needed to align more.
‘‘We’ve got to continue to maintain our vigilance over this. And to do that, we’ve got to stick together on this stuff. It’s very important.’’
Much has been made in Australia of the fact that New Zealand didn’t sign the recent statement — and that criticism was amplified because of the blunder by Trade Minister Damien O’Connor in suggesting Australia show China more respect.
Nothing has been made of the fact that of the four ‘‘Five Eyes’’ statements issued on China since May last year on the national security law, New Zealand has signed up to two, and not signed up to two.
And that is how it should be. The decision is deliberate. New Zealand is not going to sign up to every statement that the other Five Eyes partners send its way nor create an expectation that it will do so.
It is not going to outsource its foreign policy statements to an intelligence alliance which Australia seems intent on turning into a political vehicle in matters to do with China.
New Zealand’s big challenge in foreign policy since being suspended from the Anzus alliance 35 years ago has been to navigate a path between its biggest trade partner, China, and its former ally and superpower, the United States.
China’s more authoritarian rule of Xi Jinping has shifted the balance towards the US.
But a more immediate challenge for New Zealand seems to be dealing with Australia’s permanent state of disappointment that New Zealand is not as outspoken as it is over China. Australia needs to get over it.
New Zealand has changed its position on China in the past three years. New Zealand’s Pacific Reset of former foreign minister Winston Peters was all about reducing China’s influence in the Pacific.
New Zealand’s commitment in December to fund Covid19 for the Pacific was as much about denying China the opportunity to use vaccines to leverage influence in the Pacific as it was about being a good neighbour.
Peters was more critical of China than previous governments to the extent he caused problems in the relationship.
How the new Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, will handle the Australian hawks was not clear from her first foreign policy speech this week.
She described the key relationships prosaically, as they are, rather than what she thinks they should become.
Interestingly, Morrison noted this week that in his conversation with United States President Joe Biden on Thursday they had talked about the ‘‘broadening of that agenda on the Five Eyes’’.
It is good step that a broader agenda is being acknowledged. It would be even better if the discussion were broadened about what Five Eyes should become.