Tim Groser: Australian election 'won't make a blind bit of difference' to NZ

Senior Political Correspondent·NZ Herald·

17 May, 2022 05:00 PM5 mins to read

NOW PLAYING • Focus Morning Bulletin: 18 May, 2022

Research finds the Parliament protest was unlike anything seen before, NZ prepares to hit another grim Covid milestone and what a change in Government across the ditch could mean for us in the latest New Zealand Herald headlines. Video ...

Tim Groser had plenty of transtasman experience as a politician but it was his days as a diplomatic that taught him that political colours counted for little in the transtasman relationship.

That is why he believes that if Australia replaces the Coalition with a Labor Government this weekend, it will not make a difference to its relationship to New Zealand's Labour Government, for better or worse.

He said New Zealand was as close as it had ever been to Australia and that was not going to change.

"I don't think the ideological complexion of the Australian Government will make any material difference to Australia New Zealand relations after the election," Groser told the Herald.

"There's a welter of evidence to support this thesis."

Make a beeline for the Beehive

Get weekly politics headlines with commentary from our political experts straight to your inbox.

By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to NZME’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark and Liberal Prime Minister John Howard had got on extremely well and New Zealand did lots of useful things with Australia during that period.

National Prime Minister John Key and Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard got on "unbelievably well with each other," Groser - who was Key's Trade Minister - said.

Groser had a ringside seat to the 1984 crisis in Anzus over New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy as a foreign policy adviser to David Lange when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister of Australia.

"What happened to the whole Anzus debate there went to the heart of Australian security concerns and its relationship with the United States," Groser said.

"It didn't make a blind bit of difference that the two Prime Ministers were Labour Prime Ministers."

Another negative example, of conservatives Sir Robert Muldoon and Malcolm Fraser leading their respective countries during the Closer Economic Relations (CER) agreement, also proved the point.

"Muldoon and Fraser had, frankly, a poisonous relationship between the two of them yet that was the period we put together the most dramatic change in transtasman relations in the last 70 years."

Groser was once told by an Australian official who had been at an international conference that when Fraser was told Muldoon was sleeping in the suite below, he organised a cricket match at midnight so the sound of the cricket ball hitting the floor would keep him awake.

(Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer once described it as Fraser jumping up and down on the floor above Muldoon at 1.30 am - although there may have been two incidents).

"Having two very conservative Prime Ministers at the time, it didn't help the CER negotiations, but it didn't stop them," Groser said.

"You come back to the bedrock reality that the ties between our two countries are so deep based on objective geographical, political and economic interests that whether Prime Ministers are aligned or not aligned doesn't actually make any great difference whatsoever.

"People will work around differences and when they are aligned, and there are big differences, it doesn't really help very much."

Groser acknowledged that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had enormous long-term consequences for international order and the rise of China posed additional threats to American hegemony.

"I think we are entering into a new era so I have got no doubt that Australia and New Zealand Governments will face large challenges but equally I have not a shadow of a doubt that both of our Governments, of whatever complexion they will be, will manage very co-operatively those differences that may arise."

He believed that despite Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern calling out Australia over the deportation of some 501s, when the deportees had grown up in Australia, overall the countries had become closer in the past few years through security concerns.

Auckland University Professor of Politics Jennifer Curtin. Photo / Supplied

Auckland University Professor of Politics Jennifer Curtin says that in policy terms, New Zealand should expect little immediate difference over the 501s policy if Labor was elected.

"Labor is not going to go light on deportations. In fact they are supportive of charging those in detention awaiting deportation fees," said Curtin, an Australian politics expert and dual citizen.

Security had been a big issue in the election, including homeland security and "Labor has had to be very careful not to look soft on border security and deportation fits into that."

"In terms of what we think of as the 501s and the challenges associated with that for New Zealand and for those coming back whose family ties are all in Australia, I wouldn't expect to see a lot of movement on that, at least initially."

In foreign policy, Curtin said Prime Minister Scott Morrison had been "scarred" by the Solomon Islands' security pact with China.

"Those conversations about how to manage China, at least publicly, may continue to present some challenges for New Zealand," she said.

A Labor Government would refresh Australia's relationship with the Pacific and be more active in climate change policy.

Curtin said that in the main foreign policy debate at the National Press Club last week between Foreign Minister Marise Payne and shadow minister Penny Wong, New Zealand had not been mentioned at all.

Wong had said Labor would embrace the Uluru Statement, which calls for a First Nations voice in the constitution, to establish a First Nations ambassador, and put an indigenous lens across the foreign affairs portfolio to change how Australia spoke to the rest of the world.

Curtin said that would provide an opportunity for New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta to work with Wong to progress the work of indigenous trade and economies and how to operationalise the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.