LISTENER MARCH 14 2020GE
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ES
Many onlookers would be shocked to know that
although Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison didn’t
quite clink champagne flutes and do a sweet high-
five after their tense-seeming joint press conference
this week, both walked away quietly happy. It was
pure theatre, and even though Morrison’s counte-
nance developed the pallor of an unbaked scone
during his earbashing, he was fully expecting it.
Ardern’s invective against Australia’s continued
deportation of errant New Zealanders who have
been in Australia since childhood was, she knew,
utterly pointless in a “having one’s way” sense. The
policy, though iniquitous and senseless, is unlikely
to change under any stripe of Australian govern-
ment. It’s popular enough with our neighbouring
voters that not even a PM uncomfortable with
its illogicality would lightly consider changing it.
Remember, this is a country with a living-memory
heritage of “White Australia” immigration. Many
Australians resent even
law-abiding immigrantsfrom New Zealand. Any means of
downsizing the influx is fine by
them.
So Ardern’s steely lecture will
have done Morrison as much good
domestically as it did her on this side
of the Tasman. Sure enough, there
was much Aussie public and media
snarling about our PM mouthing
off to their PM – as there would be
if Morrison came here and told her
how to suck eggs.We have differences, some sincere,
such as our varying defence and
foreign-affairs stances, and some
disingenuous, such as their largely fic-
tional objection to our apple exports
and our insistence that Russell Crowe
is a Kiwi. Domestic politics trumps
all, though, and far from being a
grave diplomatic rift, this was pure
win-win.BROWN SHIELDS
In any case, Ardern
doesn’t need to go
looking abroad for
fights to pick. She
has a finger now
on auto-wag with
respect to New Zea-
land First’s Shane
Jones who, in insult-
ing immigrants, has
swapped his dogwhistle for a megaphone. Daringly,
he is using two brown shields. One
is “I cannot be racist because I’m
Māori”. The other is that his slagging
off of Indian immigrants is powered
by complaints from the Indian com-
munity itself; therefore, it can’t be
racist, times-two.
This is no mutual backscratch. It
may win NZ First some conservative
rump votes – though it would be nice
to think not – but it doesn’t flatter
Ardern to constantly have to chastise
Jones without being able to visit con-
sequences upon him.
For all his obnoxious rhetoric, he’s a
valuable member of the Cabinet. His
provincial growth strategy and the
upscaling of forestry are substantive
planks of the Government’s policy.
However, his vainglorious swagger-
ing at each Provincial Growth Fund
bestowal and his blatant efforts to pri-
oritise Northland – the poorest region
but also the one whose seat NZ First
badly needs to win – are generating
a rotten smell. As for blackguarding
Indians just as his leader, Winston
Peters, returned from a trip to court
a trade deal with India ... a teeny bit
sackable, one would have thought.
How long until the Government’s
polling shows Jones is a net liability?
If he’s not engineering a coalition rift
with the tacit agreement of the rest of
his caucus, it’s time someone dosed
his tea. His mannered articulacy does
not discount his flagrant disrespect of
Ardern.
A managed split with NZ First has
always been in her bottom drawer,
though Jones could obviate this
by detonating the “I will not beD
iplomacy is often mordantly
described as the art of letting
someone else have your way. As
the transtasman Prime Ministers
have just proven, it can be even
more perverse than that.
POLITICS
NZ First may have inadvertently saved Labour from an election gaffe.
Obnoxious allies
JANE
CLIFTON
How long until the
Government’s polling
shows Shane Jonesis a net liability?
Political theatre:
Jacinda Ardern and
Scott Morrison at their
joint press conference.