Aussie, we have our own voice

Vexation across the ditch over foreign-policy differences

Australia is finally treating Kiwis equally — all New Zealanders in detention awaiting deportation will get the Covid-19 vaccine the same as everyone else in Australia.

It wasn’t what 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.

She broke the unstated rule between Australia and New Zealand that they might go hammer and tongs behind closed doors but never criticise each other publicly.

Within hours of Ardern’s public face-slap, attention had been diverted to New Zealand’s first Covid case.

But New Zealand has no comeback when Australia gets prickly, as Morrison did twice this week.

He compared New Zealand’s slow roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine, scheduled to begin in April with Australia’s fast-tracked programme, due to get under way this month. And why wouldn’t he?

Kiwi ministers have repeatedly compared New Zealand’s surprising economic resilience with Australia’s less favourable figures. Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has also expressed scepticism about Australia’s fast-track programme.

It will be galling for Australia if New Zealand manages to piggy-back on the fast-tracked delivery and get early doses from Pfizer as well.

Covid has complicated the relationship, requiring greater cooperation between the countries but also opening fronts for political friction. Covid-19 related 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.

More serious criticism came 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.’

Much has been made in Australia of the fact New Zealand didn’t sign the recent statement, and that criticism was amplified by Trade Minister Damien O’Connor 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.

New Zealand is not going to sign up to every statement its Five Eyes partners send its way.

It is not going to outsource its foreign policy statements to an intelligence alliance 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 Anzus 35 years ago has been to navigate a path between its biggest trade partner, China, and 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 seems to be dealing with Australia’s disappointment that New Zealand is not as outspoken as it is on China. Australia needs to get over it. New Zealand has changed its position on China in recent years. NZ’s Pacific Reset of former Foreign Minister Winston Peters was about reducing China’s influence in the Pacific.

New Zealand’s commitment in December to fund Covid-19 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 critical of China to the extent he caused problems in the relationship.

How new Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta would 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 he and US President Joe Biden had talked about the “broadening of that agenda on the Five Eyes”.

It is a 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.