Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed he has secured facetime with King Charles III during his visit to London for the coronation, and is set to make further announcements on New Zealand’s help for Ukraine.
He will also meet his British counterpart, Rishi Sunak, at 10 Downing St during the trip.
“Yes, I will be meeting with several members of the royal family, including ... the King,” Hipkins said at today’s post-Cabinet press conference.
Hipkins said he would not provide any further details about the meeting until closer to the time.
Hipkins left tonight for the UK - and spoke to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from the airport lounge ahead of his flight. In a statement after that call, it was described as “warm and insightful.”
Had a phone call with 🇳🇿 PM @chrishipkins. Thanked for participation in training our military. We count on its continuation and further cooperation on defense and humanitarian issues. Discussed the importance of consolidating the countries of the Pacific region to support 🇺🇦.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 1, 2023
The statement said it was the first time they had spoken since Zelenskyy addressed New Zealand’s Parliament in December, although there had been ongoing interaction between the two countries.
The pair also discussed Hipkins trip to the UK, during which Hipkins intends to announce further support for Ukraine while on a visit to New Zealand’s troops near London. The NZ Defence Force are helping train Ukrainians for the war.
“New Zealand steadfastly supports Ukraine and will continue to look for ways we can provide meaningful contributions,” Hipkins said. He said he looked forward to meeting Zelenskyy when the opportunity arose, but had no plans to visit Ukraine itself at this stage.
He will travel back to Europe in July for the NATO Leaders’ Summit in Lithuania, where Ukraine will be a key topic.
Hipkins is travelling with a New Zealand delegation to Britain for the coronation on May 6.
The delegation includes Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro, New Zealand High Commissioner to the UK Phil Goff, Opposition leader Christopher Luxon and Richie McCaw as a representative of the Order of New Zealand.
He will attend the ceremony in London with several other NZ Government representatives and iwi leaders.
In London, Hipkins’ meeting with Sunak will be about trade - in particular the UK-NZ Free Trade Agreement - the war in Ukraine and activities in the Indo-Pacific region.
Hipkins said the free trade agreement was “gold standard” and predicted to boost GDP by $1 billion a year.
It would save around $37 million per year on tariff elimination from day one, which was why getting it into force as soon as possible would be a key focus of the trip, he said.
Hipkins will also convene a roundtable on climate change, which will include the former British High Commissioner to NZ Laura Clarke, who is now the chief executive of ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation.
Speaking on his travel for the coronation, Hipkins said it would be a significant international event given the King is our head of state. “It’s a significant part of history.”
Asked if he was a monarchist or a republican, Hipkins said he had already stated he was the latter, but said he would be only one vote when the country had the discussion.
Hipkins said he didn’t envisage having a discussion on whether New Zealand should become a republic if he won another term in Government.
He said it wasn’t a priority at the moment and considered it a distraction given the other factors affecting Kiwis at the moment.
“I don’t particularly have any interest in pushing that debate on New Zealanders at the moment.”
Speaking on the KiwiRail disruption today, Hipkins cited the statement issued earlier concerning a review of what happened.
The Government is launching a rapid review after a faulty piece of critical equipment led to major disruptions in Wellington’s rail network.
“It isn’t acceptable,” he said. “Clearly, they’ve dropped the ball here. Lack of funding isn’t an excuse.”
He said if there was a constraint on resources, he would expect KiwiRail to take steps to address it before it became a problem.
Over several decades, the rail system had been run down, Hipkins said.
On the hostage situation of New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens in West Papua, Hipkins said the Government remained committed to providing support to resolve the situation.
He wouldn’t comment on the specifics around negotiations, except to say that some information in the public arena was incorrect.
Last year the King held a 10-minute meeting with former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the time of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. He has not yet met formally with Hipkins, one of 15 leaders of Commonwealth realm countries, many of whom will attend the coronation.
Hipkins departs as Defence Minister Andrew Little today returned from a trip to Turkey, Europe and Jordan. Little attended Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli, a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Germany, and also visited New Zealand Defence Force troops in Jordan.
Hipkins said a trip to Ukraine wasn’t on his schedule at this time.
He wouldn’t rule out going to Ukraine during his trip to the Nato meeting later this year, but expected it was unlikely given his packed schedule.
Hipkins was also asked about a report by the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier overnight that he will be attending a Pacific leaders’ meeting on May 22, also attended by United States President Joe Biden.
This follows a report by the Herald on Friday that officials were anticipating an invitation to the meeting.
Biden will be the first sitting US President to visit the Pacific island nation, stopping off en route from the G7 meeting in Japan to Australia, as the US continues to ramp up its diplomatic push in the Pacific.
Hipkins said he had not yet been formally invited as the meeting itself had not been made official.
“Certainly if the event is confirmed, and an invitation is received, unless there’s a good reason not to go it will certainly be my intention to go.
“If the event does take place, it’s something New Zealand would welcome. We’ve encouraged the US to be more active in the Pacific area and we certainly would want to be part of those conversations.”
He said often these events happened “quite last minute”.
He had not sent a direct invitation to Biden to visit New Zealand while in the region but a US President would “always be welcome”.
Hipkins said he had not received an invitation to join the quad meeting in Australia - including leaders of Australia, the US, Japan and India - but it was not something he expected.
Fourteen Pacific leaders will also meet in Port Moresby on May 22 with India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
Asked whether Hipkins had invited the US President to Wellington during his visit to Australia, Hipkins said he wasn’t aware whether the invitation was offered by former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
He noted that if a US President wanted to go somewhere, it was likely they would do so.
“You don’t just drop invitations willy-nilly out of nowhere.”
Biden’s visit would also come against the heightened geo-strategic competition between Washington and Beijing across the region. While the US has repeatedly insisted its renewed interest is driven by a desire to help Pacific Island nations tackle serious threats such as climate change and illegal fishing, the reality is the jockeying with China is an underlying driving force.
Hipkins has also announced that he has accepted an invitation to attend a major Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 11 and 12.
That summit will involve the Nato leaders and a handful of representatives from non-Nato countries, including New Zealand, Australia, Japan and South Korea - dubbed the Asia Pacific 4. Zelenskyy is also expected to attend.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, initially turned down the invitation but has since changed his mind and will attend too.
Hipkins’ latest overseas travel was just over a week ago to Australia, where a historic pathway to citizenship for New Zealanders in Australia was announced.
It was his second visit as Prime Minister after a day trip to Canberra earlier this year.
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