Foreign Minister Marise Payne has appointed Harinder Sidhu as Australia's next High Commissioner to New Zealand.
Ms Sidhu is a career diplomat who has served in Russia, India, and Syria and replaces Patricia Forsythe in the role, who left this week.
She inherits a strong trans-Tasman relationship underpinned by people-to-people links, but increasingly strained in recent years.
New Zealand governments have decried the thousands of deportations from Australia, and most vociferously those made on character grounds rather than serious criminality.
The Australian and New Zealand governments have also traded barbs over contrasting policies to China, COVID-19 border restrictions and Australia's citizenship-stripping practices of dual nationals.
