Wellington Declaration signals US-NZ thaw complete

Hillary Clinton is met by the US ambassador to New Zealand David Huebner. Photo / Getty Images

The United States and New Zealand will today sign a new partnership document known as the Wellington Declaration.

The signing will take place after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has talks at Parliament with Foreign Minister Murray McCully and Prime Minister John Key.

It will set out areas of co-operation.

It is expected to cover general defence co-operation, but not address the issues of joint military exercises which were banned in 1986. That will be raised in formal talks.

The United States has preferred to relax its military reprisals with less fanfare other than the political thaw.

Today's declaration is confirmation the thaw is complete, and has been for several years.

It will cover areas of co-operation including non-nuclear proliferation, the Pacific, and Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

The declaration is thought to have been proposed by Washington as a tangible symbol of the restoration of the relationship since its decision in 2007 to accept New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance as permanent.

Mrs Clinton was met early this morning in Wellington by Mr McCully and New Zealand's ambassador to Washington, former Prime Minister Mike Moore.

Mr McCully said what he would be looking for in the Pacific would be a "higher level of partnership" with the United States.

"I very much welcome the fact that USAid is now becoming re-established in the Pacific. That provides partnership opportunities that we very much look forward to."

The mid-term election results and the consequences it might have on the shape of the Congress and Senate and their receptiveness to a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal will also be high on the agenda.

Anticipating a poor result for the Democrats, Mrs Clinton told a meeting in Malaysia on Tuesday that the party of the President lost seats in the first election after the inauguration of a President and it was "the way American politics keeps itself in the centre".

The executive director of the US-NZ Council, Stephen Jacobi, said that whichever party controlled the House, it would have issues for the future of the TPP.

Not all of the Tea Party activists in the Republican Party favoured free trade.

"I'm sure all sorts of matrices are being put up in all sorts of offices in Washington - goodness knows which is the right one that is going to come out of all of this," Mr Jacobi said.

NOW WE'RE PARTNERS

Forget allies, or very, very, very close friends, as New Zealand has been described by the United States.

It's now "partnership".

The declaration to be signed in Wellington today elevates the relationship, recognising New Zealand as a strategic partner of the US.

New Zealand lost its status as an "ally" 25 years ago when the anti-nuclear rift ended the three-way Anzus defence alliance.

In 2002, former Secretary of State Colin Powell described New Zealand as "very, very, very close friends".

His successor, Condoleezza Rice, confused the matter in 2008 when she referred to New Zealand as "allies" but it was clearly in the informal sense.

The current Administration is clearer. America's allies in the region are those with which it has security pacts: Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines.

It also has emerging partnerships.

The strategic partnership to be signed today is a new name given to an old friendship with fresh possibilities for improvement.

FIRST FOR HILLARY

* This is Mrs Clinton's first visit to New Zealand. Husband Bill, daughter Chelsea and Hillary's mother, Dorothy Rodham, came in 1999 for the Apec summit when Mr Clinton was US President. Mrs Clinton stayed home to concentrate on getting herself elected to the US Senate.
* Assistant Secretary of State for Asia Pacific Kurt Campbell will be with her.
* This is Mrs Clinton's sixth trip to the Asia-Pacific region as Secretary of State.