News coverage of the event at Parliament this week where former Foreign Minister Winston Peters was guest of honour was limited for a reason.
Only a small number of media, me included, had been given advance notice of the event and an indirect assurance we would not be kickedout, which is as good as an invitation for a journalist.
The diplomatic corps was there in force, including ambassadors from the United States and China, Scott Brown and Wu Xi, and thoughtful speeches were given, particularly by the Prime Minister about Peters, and by Peters about the Pacific Reset.
Afterwards, Brown, who was appointed by Donald Trump and is leaving NZ soon, was overheard telling Jacinda Ardern what a great ambassador to the US Peters would make.
Any such appointment would have made greater sense had Trump been re-elected, given the good relations Peters had cultivated with his Administration. But the landscape is changing quickly and the case is not compelling.
Nanaia Mahuta, Jacinda Ardern, Winston Peters and Trevor Mallard at the "handover" on Tuesday. Photo / Audrey Young
In her speech, Ardern also alluded to Peters' opposition to politicians filling jobs of career diplomats – saying she respected it.
It is not like Ardern to have used such an event to convey a message to Peters and it almost certainly wasn't intended.
But what became clear through their respective speeches was the reassertion of the Pacific Reset and by implication that it would make more sense to use him to advance that cause.
The reset was the centrepiece of the Ardern-Peters foreign policy and it served several purposes.
Winston Peters on the campaign trail in Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The increase in attention and resources from New Zealand to the Pacific has clearly been of benefit to Pacific neighbours.
It has also given New Zealand influence and leverage in an important part of the world where rivalries between China and the US and Australia are playing out in an increasingly worrying fashion.
In a significant move this week, and still in the supposedly lame-duck period for Trump, US Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite announced the US Navy First Fleet would be reformed for the first time since 1973 as an expeditionary fleet in parts of the Asia-Pacific area and Indian Ocean.
"This will reassure our partners and allies of our presence and commitment to this region while ensuring any potential adversary knows we are committed to global presence, to ensure rule of law and freedom of the seas," he told the Senate foreign relations committee, which Biden once headed.
It is not clear whether Biden will rescind that decision or what a US Fleet in the regions might mean for New Zealand. It will certainly mean a much greater presence of the US Navy near Australia and South Asia.
Joe Biden during his visit to New Zealand in 2016 during which he announced a resumption of US ship visits. Photo / Greg Bowker
When Biden was in New Zealand in July 2016, he announced the resumption of US ship visits to New Zealand, ending a 33-year absence, and he put store on the presence of the US in the region.
It is an uncomfortable fact that New Zealand's response to China is having an increasingly important effect on New Zealand's bilateral relationships.
Ardern was inexorably drawn into the raging diplomatic row between Australia and China this week over the vile fake picture tweeted by Beijing's Foreign Ministry of an Australian soldier poised to slit a baby's throat.
She properly condemned it, as Kiwis would have expected her to with an issue of our ally's honour at stake, even at the risk of annoying China.
Illustration / Guy Body
She was slapped on the wrist by China's Foreign Ministry for doing so but its standing is so diminished by its antics this week that it is meaningless.
Next week? Who knows. That depends how brazen China will be.
The function for Winston Peters was apparently billed in the invitation as a "handover" to Nanaia Mahuta rather than a "farewell" and some of us got an indirect complaint that it was called a "farewell".
But developments on the diplomatic front are moving with such a pace that the relationships Peters might have been handing over have already changed since the election.
