Former PM Helen Clark makes an intimidating appearance in Grant Robertson's new memoir. Photo / Paul Taylor
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Welcome to Inside Politics. New Zealand now faces a second important foreign policy decision in the wake of a rel="" title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/australia-expels-iran-ambassador-over-anti-semitic-attacks/7WPCZFHB3NCMPJK3L5RX4S46DM/">major diplomatic scandal in Australia that has resulted in it severing relations with Iran.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has asked his officials for advice in the wake of revelations by Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese this week that Iran was behind two terrorist anti-Semitic attacks in Australia last year, that it has expelled the Iranian ambassador, and it plans to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.
Albanese made the announcement on Tuesday, but only after Australia had secretly evacuated its embassy staff in Tehran out of the country. The same opponents who have been attacking him for his plans to recognise Palestinian statehood next month at the United Nations have been praising his response to Iran’s involvement in anti-Semitic firebombings of a synagogue in Melbourne and a kosher cafe in Sydney.
Luxon must now decide whether to also designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation – and that is not a simple box-ticking exercise. It would be practically impossible for New Zealand to maintain diplomatic relations with Iran if it had designated an elite branch of its military to be terrorists. It would almost certainly mean shutting down the New Zealand embassy in Tehran and having Iran withdraw its ambassador from Wellington.
New Zealand has had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1973 and set up an embassy in Tehran in 1975. It was deeply involved in the 1979 US hostage crisis and helped six hostages to escape, contrary to Ben Affleck’s film Argo, which depicted them as being turned away from the New Zealand Embassy. (That gave rise to a parliamentary resolution of disappointment at the time, sponsored by the now Foreign Minister Winston Peters.)
But this decision on terrorist designation is not one for Peters, although he will be involved. Under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, “the Prime Minister may designate an entity as a terrorist entity under this section if the Prime Minister believes on reasonable grounds that the entity has knowingly carried out, or has knowingly participated in the carrying out of one or more terrorist acts”.
The Prime Minister, of course, will receive advice from his primary national security advisers, including Ben King, who is both head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Luxon’s national security adviser.
And the Government will take soundings from friends such as the United States and Canada, who have both made similar designations, and the UK and the European Union, who have not.
There may be value among friends in keeping some diplomatic presence in Iran and not necessarily following Australia in lockstep.
The other major decision is whether New Zealand will recognise a Palestinian state, along with Australia, Canada, and Britain – a decision to be made before leaders’ week at the United Nations in late September. It is a clear response to Israel’s disproportionate attacks on civilians in Gaza – it struck a hospital twice this week, killing 20 people, including five journalists – starvation in Gaza, and its plans to unlawfully extend settlements into the occupied West Bank to extinguish a two-state solution.
New Zealand has long supported a two-state solution and Christopher Luxon has this week continued to criticise its attempts to block such a solution and impede aid trucks for Gaza. That on top of Luxon having described Isaeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as having “lost the plot”.
As Jamie Ensor reported this week, Luxon’s eloquence over Israeli action may not be sitting well with Winston Peters, who is leading the process on whether Palestine will be recognised. Peters’ office provided comment that, while not mentioning Luxon by name, could be pointed towards him.
“Mr Peters holds the view that providing a running commentary on the situation on the ground in the Middle East while the Government is considering this matter is unhelpful and counterproductive,” the statement said.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson had his memoir Anything Could Happen published last week by Allen & Unwin. Unlike Jacinda Ardern’s recent book, A Different Kind of Power, which was written for an international audience, his was written for a domestic audience. It contained more detail, and you weren’t left wondering who he was writing about – with one exception.
In a rare anecdote told against former Prime Minister Helen Clark, he described how she was “extremely direct” when she was not happy. “On one occasion in the later years of her time in office, she was sent a copy of a draft speech by a new staff member. She put red pen through most of the speech and faxed it back with a note written on the top of it: ‘I don’t know who you are, or what your job is, but you are not very good at it.”
Robertson did not name the victim in the book. But according to Andrew Kirton, it was him. However, it appears not to have had a lasting negative effect. He went on to become a Labour Party General Secretary and chief of staff to Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. These days, one could speculate that similar directness by Clark to a millennial might land her in the middle of an employment dispute.
In my piece on the book, I have concentrated on the part of Robertson’s career that was a revelation to me, and that was his graphic explanation of why he turned down the role of Prime Minister when he had the chance.
• In regards to Christopher Luxon giving his reckons to the Reserve Bank Governor about the OCR, Labour leader Chris Hipkins tells me that when he was Prime Minister, he recalled meeting then-Governor Adrian Orr once in the office of Finance Minister Grant Robertson. “It was more them telling us what they were going to do, certainly not a meeting for us to have input or give feedback.”
• The recall of former Speaker Sir Trevor Mallard as ambassador to Ireland is not as serious as it sounds. Several people have asked me if Mallard had erred in some way. But no, while he is being recalled early, it is only a few weeks early and by a Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, who is a sworn political enemy. Mallard was due to return early next year and instead he will be returning late this year. Peters left him in place for almost the entire term, as has been the tradition with political appointments of previous Governments, but will get the history books to record that he recalled him early. Among those with long memories, only one other politically motivated recall springs to mind, and that was when Sir Robert Muldoon, shortly after he became Prime Minister, terminated the appointment of former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Sir Hugh Watt to London. Muldoon replaced him with a former National Agriculture Minister, Sir Doug Carter. Peters continues to condemn political diplomatic appointments, but he himself has made at least two, both considered successful: his former NZ First colleague Brian Donnelly to the Cook Islands, and former Labour deputy Dame Annette King to Canberra.
• Speaker Gerry Brownlee is undertaking his own diplomatic mission during the current parliamentary recess, leading a delegation of MPs to Hanoi, Vietnam, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Travelling with him are five MPs from five parties: NZ First’s Jamie Arbuckle, Act’s Dr Parmjeet Parmar, the Greens’ Lan Pham, Labour’s Jenny Salesa, and National’s Sam Uffindell.
“When potential supermarket competitors look at New Zealand right now, they see far too many regulatory stop signs and red lights. Our Government is determined to change that view from no to go” – Finance Minister Nicola Willis outlines moves to encourage competition.
Parmjeet Parmar is in her first term as an Act MP. What other party has she represented in Parliament and when? (Answer at the bottom of this article.)
Goes to Reserve Bank chairman Neil Quigley, who not only objected to Treasury releasing minutes of a testy meeting between former Governor Adrian Orr, Treasury boss Ian Rennie, Finance Minister Nicola Willis and himself shortly before Orr resigned, but – according to new OIA releases – to Treasury even making a minute of the meeting about their disagreements over funding the RBNZ. Transparency is clearly beneath him.
Goes to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for taking to Facebook to invite Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce to get married or honeymoon in New Zealand on hearing of their engagement. Embarrassment is outweighed by enterprise, especially if it works.
Orr resignation: Reserve Bank chairman warned Treasury of risk to ‘goodwill’ in releasing information after Adrian Orr resignation
Supermarket competition: Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis reveals plans to speed up supermarket consent process
Investor visa: ‘This is not an Oprah-style, everyone gets a visa’: Stanford on new investor visa as speculation rises over foreign buyer settings
Housing subsidies: Government banks $151m by ending ‘double-dipping’, wiping $100 a week for struggling households
OCR input: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he gives ‘reckons’ to RBNZ Governor on cash rate calls
Bank rules: Reserve Bank bows to Government’s wishes, proposing to make bank capital rules less restrictive
Gaza commentary: Winston Peters says ‘running commentary unhelpful’, Christopher Luxon voices concern over Gaza situation
Analysis – Treaty case: Judge says Waitangi Tribunal is ‘Rolls Royce’ arbiter on Treaty – Audrey Young
King question: Mike King’s role within Government-funded charity I Am Hope unclear
Uni grades: More than a third of university grades are As. Grade inflation, or are students just doing better?
Robertson book: ‘It hit me like a thunderbolt’ – Grant Robertson reveals stress, health struggles before PM decision
Quiz answer: Act MP Parmjeet Parmar was a list MP for National from 2014 to 2020.
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