00:00The Prime Minister, of course, is trying to square a circle here, because on the one hand
00:05he's saying that common sense should apply, but on the other hand he is making it pretty
00:10clear, as the government has for months, that in the end what's really going to count for
00:14Australia is the question of community safety, and that that will outweigh other considerations,
00:20including the length of time that people have spent in the country.
00:23Now this does mean that it's going to continue to be a point of friction between New Zealand
00:28and Australia, because the argument that we've heard repeatedly from New Zealand is
00:32that it is simply not reasonable for people who've spent all of their formative years
00:36in Australia to be sent to New Zealand, simply because they happen to hold New Zealand citizenship.
00:42And it does sound, from what the Prime Minister said just then, that there is still a difference
00:46of opinion.
00:47Now both sides have obviously agreed to continue to talk on this.
00:51They say they have a common purpose, but not necessarily a completely common understanding.
00:56In the end, a lot of this will simply come down to how this new ministerial direction
01:01unveiled a few months ago is applied, what weight is put on people's links to the community
01:05versus community safety, and whether we see any more of those instances of people with
01:10absolutely no connection to New Zealand being sent there or not.
01:14Obviously this is still a point of real friction in the relationship, and Prime Minister Luxen
01:19has made it clear, albeit in very measured tones, that he's going to continue to keep
01:23a very close eye on this, and that New Zealand will want to see an approach taken that doesn't
01:28see us back in the days where we had large numbers of people with no connection to New
01:32Zealand sent right across the ditch.
01:35And Stephen, to what extent could this disagreement over deportations risk or compromise other
01:41elements of cooperation with New Zealand?
01:44Look, I think it's a little bit more than an irritant in the relationship, but we also
01:48shouldn't overstate it.
01:49The reality is that it's only one part of a big, broad relationship between Australia
01:54and New Zealand which remains, across multiple domains, extremely close and with an awful
01:59lot of common purpose.
02:01And we saw plenty of evidence of that in the press conference today, perhaps particularly
02:05when it comes to strategic and defence cooperation.
02:08You heard there from Christopher Luxen a couple of times in talking about the need for Australia
02:12and New Zealand to be interoperable when it comes to their military forces.
02:16You've also heard new plans put in place to put senior defence or very senior defence
02:21personnel essentially embedding them in the New Zealand Defence Force and vice versa.
02:26You've also got a new determination from New Zealand to invest, according to Christopher
02:31Luxen, in new capabilities through its Defence Capability Review, which he says will help
02:36New Zealand act as what he's called a force multiplier for Australia in the region.
02:41And of course, both countries share enormous anxieties, including over Russia's invasion
02:46of Ukraine, but also about China's increasingly assertive presence in the Pacific and elsewhere
02:52in the region.
02:53Now, let's take a quick listen to Christopher Luxen talking about his vision for interoperable
02:58forces between Australia and New Zealand and what New Zealand wants to do to bolster its
03:02own security.
03:03New Zealand wants to build over time in its defence capability.
03:07So that work we hope to have completed towards the end of the year, maybe early next year.
03:12We obviously want to do that in close engagement because our intention is to say, you know,
03:16we want to be fully interoperable with Australia's defence forces.
03:19We want to be a force multiplier for Australia.
03:22And by making sure that we can do things like joint procurement, we have alignment on what
03:26we can bring.
03:27That's the work that will go on through the course of the year.
03:30And Stephen, there has been agreement on another issue.
03:33New Zealand has backed a Pacific policing plan that Australia has been pushing.
03:37What did the leaders have to say about that?
03:39Yeah, this is an interesting initiative.
03:41It hasn't got a whole lot of attention yet, but I think that will start to change over time.
03:45Essentially, this is something called the Pacific Policing Initiative that would see
03:49a new training facility set up for Pacific police in Brisbane, just near the airport.
03:53It would also see, at least in theory, a new rotating force of police officers trained
03:58in Australia who could deploy to hotspots across the region, as well as a whole lot
04:02of centres of excellence set up for specialised technical training for police across the Pacific.
04:08Now, it's been described by Australia as a Pacific-led initiative, but the brute reality
04:12is that Australia has been the one that's really been pushing this, and it will be funded
04:17almost entirely by considerable amounts of money from Australian taxpayers.
04:21And there's no denying what's behind this.
04:23It's basically not just a desire to try and bolster Pacific police forces, but also strategic
04:29denial and an attempt to keep China out of the Pacific policing space.
04:33Now, Christopher Luxon backed this in fully today, saying that New Zealand was entirely
04:37supportive of the proposal.
04:39It will be interesting to see what happens next week, or the week after, rather, at the
04:42Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting, where they're being asked to essentially endorse
04:46the entire plan.
04:48Solomon Islands has already raised concerns about this being, quote, steamrolled through.
04:52So it will be a critical test of just where this initiative stands at that meeting in
04:56Tonga towards the end of the month.
04:59Foreign Affairs reporter Stephen Judges, thank you for that update.
Comments