It was all hugs and smiles when Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern were reunited in Queenstown on Sunday, but as political editor Jo Moir reports, today is bound to have plenty of uncomfortable tensions.
There was an ease about Scott Morrison’s reunion with Jacinda Ardern on Sunday that hasn’t been seen before.
The leaders had their first bilateral meeting in Auckland in 2019, which went by with little noteworthiness other than an awkward handshake attempt from Ardern that Morrison interpreted as a hug.
On Sunday they appeared more like long-lost friends – torn apart by Covid, having been unable to visit for 15 months.
Their most recent meeting in Sydney in February last year coincided with New Zealand recording its first Covid case on home soil.
Ardern delivered the news to media right before boarding a plane back home.
While the nature of the trans-Tasman relationship means the two Prime Ministers have always been friendly, last year was different because Ardern went in ready for a scrap.
On the Prime Minister’s plane from Fiji to Sydney, media had been prepped about the bilateral and what to expect.
Having come from Suva, where much of the talks were about climate change, it was indicated that would be a focus.
Ardern was also expected to again raise her unhappiness about Australia’s hardline deportation policy – something she’d done many times before.
She hadn’t yet written the remarks she planned to make at the joint press conference the next day, but even her own chief press secretary wasn’t expecting anything too out of the ordinary.
Ardern however had seemingly spent that flight prepping for a fight.
She walked away from Sydney with a potential pandemic about to sweep her own country, but having publicly landed a bruising uppercut to Morrison on his home turf.
Having not chatted to the media at all on the flight to Sydney, on the way back home she wandered down the aisle with a cup of tea in hand, basking in victory after launching her surprise attack.
Covid hit hard in the months after that and Morrison and Ardern have maintained a close relationship throughout, sharing strategies for elimination and working on vaccines and how best to aid the Pacific.
Ardern referred to that closeness in her remarks at a business and community function at the Skyline centre in Queenstown on Sunday evening, saying, she had been in communication with Morrison more than her own mother during Covid.
Morrison’s own remarks and demeanour on Sunday carried a newfound warmth and familiarity.
It was the leaders’ third meeting, and Morrison’s comfort is possibly helped by the fact he lived and worked in New Zealand in the late 90s.
While a pōwhiri can be a confusing and unfamiliar experience for most world leaders who visit, for Morrison there’s a sense of understanding and appreciation of the culture and the importance of the traditional welcome.
In his remarks at the Skyline function he noted several times his appreciation of Ngāi Tahu and the leadership role they’ve played for indigenous people, not just in New Zealand, but on the world stage.
He talked about New Zealand as if it was his own backyard – referring to popular Queenstown eatery, Ferg Burger, as having its own index to measure New Zealand’s Covid recovery.
Edward Ellison, of Ngāi Tahu, referred to Morrison and his wife, Jenny, as being like a rare bird, not seen as much lately but made the more special by returning.
There’s no doubting the relationship between the two countries is like no other.
Morrison described the way the two leaders had worked together in the past 15 months as being “an Anzac path we’ve charted through this pandemic’’.
The Morrisons dined with Ardern and Clarke Gayford at Eichardt’s on Sunday night, but both leaders had agreed it would be Monday’s meeting before the work started.
There are a number of contentions and points of difference across a vast range of areas that it makes it almost impossible that they’ll all be covered in just a two-hour meeting.
New Zealand’s relationship with China is so prominent at the moment it’s hard to conceive it not coming up.
That couldn’t have been made clearer than when the first question a visiting Australian journalist asked Morrison on arrival in Queenstown was: “Prime Minister, is the reason you're here because New Zealand's soft approach to China is splintering our relationship?’’
Deportations and New Zealanders' path to citizenship in Australia are old but still raw subjects to be dealt with.
Then there’s any number of Pacific problems from the political turmoil in Samoa, to the upcoming Fiji election, and the threat of some island nations pulling out of the Pacific Islands Forum.
Not to mention Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton’s remarks in recent weeks about not discounting conflict with China over its stances on the South China Sea and Taiwan.
And that’s only the things close to home. There’s also plenty to discuss on the trade and security front, the new US administration, and Australia’s invitation to the upcoming G7 summit.
Given both Ardern and Morrison talk up the relationship and how frank it can be because of the close bond, there’s every possibility one or both of them could find things to vent about later on Monday.
