New Zealand to back Australia in WTO China barley tariff dispute

Jacinda Ardern has thrown her support behind Australia in its trade dispute with China on barley tariffs.

Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison take part in a traditional hongi greeting in Queenstown on Sunday. Picture: Calum Robertson

Jacinda Ardern has thrown her support behind Australia in its trade dispute with China on barley tariffs, in a show of unity against Beijing during Scott Morrison’s two-day trip to New Zealand.

After strained relations between the trans-Tasman neighbours over China, the New Zealand Prime Minister welcomed her counterpart to Queenstown on Sunday and declared her country would stand with Australia as “family” amid increasing global uncertainty.

She said sovereign nations such as Australia and New Zealand would not always see issues in the same way, but “in this increasingly complex geostrategic environment, family is incredibly important”.

“And Australia, you are our family,” she told Mr Morrison at a business reception in the New Zealand tourism hub.

“And so, I can’t imagine a more important time for us to just continue building those ties.”

Mr Morrison and his wife Jenny were welcomed to Queenstown with a traditional Maori greeting, including the “hongi” touching of noses with Ms Ardern and her husband Clarke Gayford.

Mr Morrison backed Ms Ardern’s assessment of the relationship, which had crashed just months ago, declaring it was “great to be among family” thanks to the trans-Tasman “travel bubble”.

Ahead of bilateral talks between the leaders on Monday, the Prime Minister flagged new biosecurity arrangements to assist in the movement of people and goods between the countries, and declared the potential expansion of quarantine-free travel to other Pacific countries was “a real possibility”.

He said regional security issues would also be on the agenda, to support “a free and independent Indo-Pacific”.

“We’re Five Eyes partners. I mean, we’re part of ANZUS,” Mr Morrison said.

“We are and have been alongside each other in favouring a world that favours freedom for a very long time.”

Earlier, New Zealand Trade Minister Damien O’Connor revealed the country would become a party to Australia’s World Trade Organisation dispute with China over its punitive 80 per cent barley tariffs on Australian imports.

“New Zealand is participating in this dispute as a third party because it raises systemic issues of importance to the effective functioning of the multilateral rules-based trading system,” Mr O’Connor said.

“We rely on the rules-based trading system to provide a secure and predictable global trading environment for everyone so we will act to uphold it.”

Chinese officials said in Switzerland on Friday that Beijing would “vigorously defend itself” against Australia’s attempts at taking the 80 per cent barley tariffs to formal WTO arbitration.

The timing of Mr O’Connor’s comments, coinciding with Mr Morrison’s visit, was not lost on Australian officials, who said the countries’ positions on China were closer than they had ¬appeared in past months.

New Zealand ministers had sought to distance the country from Australia’s harder stance on Beijing. Mr O’Connor declared in January that Australia should “show respect” and be more “cautious with wording” when criticising China.

The rift widened when New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta expressed a reluctance to join in statements by “Five Eyes” nations criticising China, saying other multilateral avenues might be a better avenue to call out bad behaviour by Beijing. Australian fears that New Zealand was “wobbly” on China were eased when Ms Ardern delivered a speech this month criticising China’s human rights record.

Mr Morrison denied the visit was a patch-up exercise because New Zealand was soft on China.

“This is an annual leader’s dialogue,” he said. “This is another opportunity to reinforce our commitment to the security interests of the region, the security interests of our bilateral partnership, and to advance our economic co-operation for our mutual prosperity and for jobs.”

Scott and Jenny Morrison with Jacinda Ardern, left, in Queenstown, New Zealand, on Sunday. Picture: Adam Taylor

Trade Minister Dan Tehan said he welcomed New Zealand’s support for the rules-based trade system, after flagging a second WTO dispute with China. He told the ABC’s Insiders that a fresh challenge was under “active consideration” over Beijing’s punitive trade bans on Australian wine. “We’ve had detailed discussions with the wine industry on this, and from the outset, we’ve always said that we would take a very principled approach when dealing with these trade disputes, and if we think our industry has been harmed or injured, we will take all necessary steps and measures to try to address that,” he said.

Before China imposed the barley tariff in May last year, half of Australia’s feed barley and 86 per cent of the nation’s malting barley exports went to China.

The Australian has reported that both Canada and Russia have also moved to join the WTO dispute. It is a common practice for countries with direct interests in the outcome of dispute negotiations to join as third parties.

GrainGrowers Australia chairman Bruce Hosking said that, as a country with strong trade ties to China, New Zealand had a stake in the outcome of the dispute.

Mr Morrison and Ms Ardern will lay a wreath on Monday at a Queenstown war memorial before closed-door talks.

He will also meet Opposition Leader Judith Collins before returning to Australia.