Why New Zealand’s Prime Minister Is Heading to Brisbane Not … – The Diplomat

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This weekendsvisitto Australia by New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins speaks volumes about major changes underway in New Zealand foreign policy.

Hipkins is flying toBrisbane Australias third-biggest city and home to around 100,000 New Zealand citizens to meet with his counterpart, Anthony Albanese.

The trips significance comes in part from its timing. Hipkins is visiting just beforeAnzac Dayon April 25. On this day each year, Australia and New Zealand both remember the role played and losses suffered by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (or Anzac for short) in World War I, and by their forces in other conflicts.

In advance of the New Zealand prime ministers travel, a newpartnershipcalled Plan Anzac has been unveiled, which promises sustained cooperation between the Australian and New Zealand militaries. The arrangement covers a wide range of areas that include strategic engagement, capability, training, readiness and common personnel issues.

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Hipkins visit is alsoexpectedto serve as an occasion for Australia to unveil a more generous pathway to citizenship for the near million-strong population of New Zealanders living in Australia an attempt at putting to bed disquiet from New Zealanders who feel Australia has not upheld traditional Anzac mateship.

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There is no better time of year for Canberra and Wellington to send signals of unity. And the bonhomie comes as New Zealand increasingly follows in Australias foreign policy footsteps.

The most recent example of the alignment came in the acceptance by both Albanese and Hipkins of an invitation to the NATO leaders summit in Lithuania this July. The joint RSVP was almost certainly coordinated between Canberra and Wellington.

After NATOs Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg publicly invited the pair to attend the meeting a fortnight ago, Hipkins initially remained non-committal,tellingreporters he hadnt decided on whether he would attend and pointedly noting his busy schedule during New Zealands election year.

Mediareportssurfaced soon afterwards that claimed Albanese would be a no-show in Vilnius.

The reporting was not initially denied.

Albanese already has a packed internationalcalendarthis year. The Australian prime minister perhaps thought that his guest attendance at the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, and hosting of a Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the United States) leaders summit in Sydney next month would be more than enough to satisfy U.S. and European leaders.

If Albanese was planning on skipping NATO, this also explained why Hipkins showed a marked lack of enthusiasm.

Butcriticismby political rivals and commentators and perhaps some pressure behind the scenes appeared to change Albaneses mind and by Monday this week, the Australian leader wassayinghe would be very pleased to accept the NATO invitation.

Yesterday, Hipkinsannouncedthat he would also be heading to Vilnius. In other words, Australia led and New Zealand followed.

The countries are also becoming closer in other ways.

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Most notably, New Zealand Defense Minister Andrew Littlesignaledlast month that Wellington was interested in joining the second pillar of the AUKUS arrangements, which focuses on cybertechnology.

A week later, Little heldtalksin Wellington with his Australian counterpart, Richard Marles. Little was typically circumspect about the substance of the talks and played down the AUKUS element. However, Marles noted alignment between Australia and New Zealand, adding that its really important that we are working as closely together as possible.

The pairs meeting came not long after avisitto New Zealand by Kurt Campbell, the White Houses Indo-Pacific coordinator illustrating how pressures and interests from further afield are also at play, a factor reinforced by the NATO invitation.

Then there is the small matter of TikTok. Both Australia and New Zealand have issued bans over the past month and surprisingly, this time New Zealand appeared to be the leader, not the follower.

In March, New Zealands Parliamentary Service effectivelybanneduse of the smartphone app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, by MPs and staffers who accessed Parliaments network. The move followed adirective(issued in November 2022, although only publicly revealed months later) by New Zealands Defense Force ordering its personnel to delete TikTok from their devices.

For its part, Australia waited until earlier this month to make its decision, but it then issued a far more sweepingbanthat prohibited the use of TikTok on devices used by employees at all Australian federal government departments and agencies.

It was also reported that more than half of Australias federal government agencies had already banned TikTok. This suggested Australia was the leader after all.

If alignment is a keyword in the 2023 version of the Australia-New Zealand relationship, another is interoperability. Littlespokeof the need for a seamless sort of interoperability with Australia after taking on the defense portfolio earlier this year, and the word is alsousedrepeatedly to justify the new Plan Anzac military partnership.

Expect to hear more about the need for New Zealand to harmonize its capabilities with those of Australia especially when the results of New ZealandsDefense Policy Revieware soon announced. The outcome of the Defense Policy Review is also likely to serve as a justification for New Zealand to announce greater military spending.

It remains to be seen how China will react to New Zealands increasing willingness to fall in line with Australia and NATO. Trade repercussions seem unlikely, although cannot be ruled out if New Zealand becomes deeply intertwined with AUKUS.

China and Australia are currently in a healing phase over trade, after Beijing effectively offered tosettlea dispute with Canberra over the tariffs China imposed in 2020 on Australias barley exports.

In the short term, any displeasure from China at New Zealands decision to take a more Australia-friendly path is more likely to come in the form of playing hard to get.

A notable omission from Hipkins travel announcements this week was any confirmation of a trip to China.

In her final months in office Hipkins predecessor, Jacinda Ardern, indicated she was seeking to visit China early in 2023 a plan that Hipkins initially reaffirmed, but later walked back.

In the announcement of his travel plans this week, the Prime Ministers Office didaddthat the government was continuing to pursue a trade focused trip to China later in the year.

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But for Hipkins to visit China, he will need an invitation. And that invitation may have just become that much harder to obtain.

After all, Hipkins is choosing Brisbane over Beijing, at least for now.

This article was originallypublished by the Democracy Project,which aims to enhance New Zealands democracy and public life by promoting critical thinking, analysis, debate, and engagement in politics and society.

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Why New Zealand's Prime Minister Is Heading to Brisbane Not ... - The Diplomat