Standing there watching the pair and listening to Ardern on the magnificent lawn of Admiralty House cascading down to Sydney Harbour, it was impressive. Up until then our leaders had pussy-footed around the deportation of so-called Kiwi criminals, delivering saccharine rebukes to their bromance buddies.
Ardern said what should always have been said: Send back Kiwis, genuine Kiwis. Don't deport your people and your problems.
She urged the Aussies to adopt our approach to foreign criminals, to stop deporting New Zealand citizens "who on any commonsense test identify as Australians".
Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison speak to media at a press conference held at Admiralty House in February. Photo / Getty Images
Tough words but they didn't wipe the smirk off Scomo's dial. It was almost as though he knew she was going to vent, the election wasn't too far away.
Peter Dutton, the former Queensland cop who is the Home Affairs Minister with all the power when it comes to the deportations, dismissed Ardern's rhetoric as electioneering, saying it was regrettable but would play well domestically for her. For once, he was probably close to the mark given the amount of notice they have taken of the rebuke.
One of the guys on the plane which is scheduled to land in Auckland left Christchurch as a 13-year-old - where do you think he learned his criminal ways and do you believe New Zealand should be held responsible for that? And there are other cases of returning "Kiwis" who have never set foot in this country, they left as babies.
Listen to Scomo when he talks about us, and he knows us pretty well having worked for the office of tourism and sport in Wellington in the 90s, and he calls us more than friends. We are family, he insists.
So our so-called cuzzies across the ditch have shown yet again that in their book blood is clearly thinner than water. They wait until our isolation facilities are stretched to the limit, at a time when the Government's got Air New Zealand to stop selling tickets for three weeks to stem the flow of those actually wanting to return, to load a plane with undesirables and send them back "home."
It seems the Beehive wasn't consulted in any meaningful way and didn't make representations to the Ocker shockers to give us a break during the Covid calamity.
The Minister of Everything Chris Hipkins sought to assuage our concerns, saying any future planeloads will be managed, adding the Aussies have a legal right to get rid of the rabble.
True, but what about a moral right and taking some responsibility for the bad behaviour learned in their country and now being transported to ours?
