Oh Jacinda Ardern, you put us to shame. If only we could live up to the standards you espouse. Arriving at the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru this week, the New Zealand Prime Minister showed no sign of easing up on reminding Australia about its obligations towards asylum-seekers in offshore processing centres.
“[It] remains on the table. Nothing has changed in that regard,” Ardern said this week, referring to her country’s standing offer to take 150 detainees from Manus Island and Nauru, which Australia has repeatedly rejected. “It’s certainly something I’ll be reiterating,” she said, having stressed only days after assuming leadership last year that “anyone” would have to see the “human face” in this situation. As those familiar with diplomatic parlance know well, “reiterating” is a euphemism for lecturing.
What a progressive dynamo she is proving to be. Only 37 when she became PM, Ardern has enchanted commentators with her youth, her centre-left ethos, her love of social justice, and her determination to address climate change. Jacinda-mania has swept not just New Zealand but also across the Tasman.
It is reminiscent of the adulation which former PM Kevin Rudd enjoyed for the first couple of years. Like Ardern, he never was a minister prior to becoming leader. As has Ardern, he inherited a vibrant economy and a surplus.
Ardern shares with Rudd a flair for symbolism. In April, when meeting the Queen the former President of the International Union of Socialist Youth, proudly wore a Maori traditional garment with feathers, an act the BBC was quick to assure readers did not constitute “cultural appropriation”. Having given birth while in office, she declared that her daughter, Neve Te Aroha, would be taught Maori, a language that only 3.7 per cent of New Zealanders speak fluently. At this rate she will be heralded as the moral conscience of the Antipodes.
“New Zealand is already showing signs of regaining its trademark standing as a small but confident, principled and creative presence internationally,” wrote an admiring United Nations representative, Thom Woodroofe, in March. “And Australia should take notice,” he added, bemoaning among other things our asylum-seeker policies.
“Ardern,” wrote fawning Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons in November — when the new PM had been in power for less than three weeks — “has been an international breath of fresh air in progressive politics, and not just because she talks about NZ being a republic, out loud. She has pointed towards a proud, independent, path for New Zealand. She treats climate change seriously, in a country where no one serious disputes climate change and the need to reduce emissions. She has called out Australia’s treatment of refugees on Manus Island for what it is: unacceptable.
“On every front of progressive politics that you can see, the Kiwis are lapping us,” he lamented. “They are the sophisticates. We are the provincials.” It brings to mind the words of the English dramatist WS Gilbert: “The idiot who praises/with enthusiastic tone/all centuries but this/and every country but his own.”
In the same article FitzSimons cited with approval the observations of his former Fairfax colleague, Kiwi, and now correspondent for The Times Bernard Lagan, who talked of events leading New Zealand to take a different path from Australia’s, particularly former PM David Lange’s anti-nuclear fissure with the American government. Yet Lagan was bemused by what he described as FitzSimons’s “lavish assessment”.
“By continuing to hector Australia,” he wrote, “Ardern has antagonised the Turnbull Government and demonstrated a shallow appreciation of the realities Australia faces in deterring people smugglers.” Incidentally, were you wondering how many asylum seekers New Zealand takes? “Lest anyone consider Australia closed to the neediest,” continued Lagan, “it is worth remembering that in the past year, the country accepted 22,000 refugees, most referred to it by the United Nations refugee agency. New Zealand? Its annual quota is a miserable 750, which might increase — [Deputy PM and New Zealand First Party leader] Winston Peters permitting — to 1500 under the new Government.” What were you saying about New Zealand lapping us in the progressive stakes, Peter FitzSimons?
Lagan is correct. Australia’s intake of refugees per capita is five times higher than New Zealand’s, a fact acknowledged by National foreign spokesperson Gerry Brownlee, who rejected Ardern’s criticism of Australia. “I think that’s a step too far,” he said. “It tends to deny the problem that Australia’s got … it’s not just the 400 people who are protesting on Manus Island.” Ardern’s comments have not gone unnoticed by people smugglers. In November, intelligence revealed operators had seized on the rift between the two countries to resume their illegal trade. Fortunately, Australian authorities intercepted four vessels carrying 164 asylum-seekers bound for New Zealand.
Rather than act as a neighbour and friend, Ardern indulges in what Lagan describes as New Zealand’s “puerile Aussie-bashing culture”. Possibly she is also being pressured by the man she replaced as Labour leader and current Minister for Justice, Andrew Little, who in 2016 demanded then-PM John Key “cause international embarrassment to Australia, if indeed they haven’t been embarrassed enough” over the delay in resettling refugees from Nauru. It is the sort of parochialism that prides itself on unnecessarily picking a fight with the big kid on the block. He has also condemned Australia’s deportation of New Zealand criminals and other undesirables, a policy he says has a “venal, political strain”. You might quip that the loud Mr Little suffers from small country syndrome.
For all her confidence, Ardern does not have a stable basis for government. Having secured only 46 seats (as opposed to the National Party’s 56) in New Zealand’s 120 seat Parliament, the Labour Party is in coalition with the New Zealand First Party, with the Greens guaranteeing supply and confidence in return for outer ministry seats. To put it nicely, it is a diverse arrangement.
It is also a case of someone’s words coming back to haunt her. “Seems the Aussies found the campaign so uneventful they decided to make the election result interesting. Risky strategy …” tweeted Ardern the day after Australia’s federal election in 2010, a result which saw the Gillard government lose its majority.
Seems the Aussies found the campaign so uneventful they decided to make the election result interesting. Risky strategy.... #ausvotes
— Jacinda Ardern (@jacindaardern) August 22, 2010
You could say Ardern’s decision to form minority government with a Liquorice Allsorts coalition is also a risky strategy, especially when nearly 45 per cent of the country voted for the conservatives.
Despite her progressive credentials, Ardern has pledged to slash the annual immigration intake from 70,000 by 20,000-30,000. Her government has banned most non-resident foreigners from buying existing homes. Those measures may well be an effective way to address home unaffordability, but can you imagine the reaction in Australia if a conservative government tried to introduce these policies? The same commentators who praise Ardern would be the first to cry ‘xenophobia’.
Soon enough Arden will discover, like Rudd, that a rock star persona is not enough. As Lagan foreshadowed, only this week her Deputy PM and coalition partner implied he would not support her token commitment to increase the country’s refugee quota election pledge to 1,500. To renege on this would cause Labour to lose much credibility, not to mention make Ardern look weak. It is a reminder she needs to stop grandstanding on the Pacific stage and pay more attention to domestic concerns.
Ardern was also embarrassed this week by revelations that her Air Force Boeing 757 had to return to New Zealand to make a second trip just for her after it conveyed the Deputy PM to the Pacific Islands Forum. The fuel bill alone for the return trip is around $NZ80,000. Her reason for her delayed trip was that she was breastfeeding her baby, who does not yet have the required immunity to travel to Nauru. Given the Deputy PM was already there in his capacity as Foreign Minister and the fact her Australian counterpart PM Scott Morrison was not attending, she was criticised for this extravagance. Peter FitzSimons, how is that for treating climate change seriously and curbing emissions?
An anecdote from Arden’s past proves revealing in respect to her offering gratuitous advice. Interviewed in 2009 not long after she was first elected, Ardern talked about studying at Arizona State University at the time of the 9/11 attacks. To her surprise, her roommate had dismissed her suggestions about America needing to temper its response, saying “no one wants to hear from a foreigner”. She was also rebuffed several weeks later in class when she said “people should look at why the attacks had happened”. This will prove awkward should a journalist ask her to elaborate on this next time she is in America.
Prime Minister, publicly lecture us on our perceived shortcomings if you must. But it is hypocritical on one hand for you to label people smugglers “parasites” while on the other undermining Australia’s efforts to combat this trade. You have the reassurance of Australia serving as a buffer between your country and Indonesia, as well as Southeast Asia.
You also know very well that Australia spends billions on preventing people smugglers from travelling to New Zealand, a commitment to which your country devotes few resources or personnel. We do not mind so much that our closest friend and ally gets a free ride at our expense, but we do resent that you exploit this to our detriment for political kudos. You purport this to be progressivism, yet it is an ill-disguised attempt to distract from the piddling number of refugees your country accepts. That is projection.
Get used to more Australians pointing out what you should be doing your side of the Tasman, Prime Minister. To paraphrase you, it’s certainly something we’ll be reiterating.
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