High Commissioner: Address to NZIIA Nelson ‘Australia and New Zealand: a partnership in action’

ADDRESS TO NZIIA NELSON

‘Australia and New Zealand: a partnership in action’

10 September 2024

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e rau rangatira mā,

Tēnā koutou katoa

Ko au te māngai o te whenua moemoeā

Ko Harinder Sidhu tōkū ingoa

Ngā mihi mahana kia koutou katoa.

Introduction

I am delighted to be with you all this evening.

I’d like to thank the NZIIA Nelson Branch for the invitation to speak to you and for hosting tonight’s event, and to Oke Blaikie for your warm introduction and hospitality.

This is particularly special for me, as my first official visit to Nelson as High Commissioner. And looking at the beautiful country around here, I can’t believe I waited this long to visit!

I want to talk with you all tonight about the Australia-New Zealand relationship.

I will be the first to admit that this is not a topic that tends to light peoples’ fires. After all, what’s to discuss?

We’re so alike, after all. We know each other well and we see the world the same way - mostly. The relationship works well. Even where we have irritants, they are not showstoppers and our bonds are strong enough to go beyond them. In short, it is unexciting. Unremarkable, really.

What I hope to establish this evening, though, is that the trans-Tasman relationship is not just important, but that it is consequential.

And that, in the world we inhabit today, it is more consequential than it has been for decades.

If there were ever a right time for us to pay attention to, to nurture and to build our partnership, that time is now.

The foundations of our partnership

I see my role as High Commissioner as being very much a steward of the bilateral relationship.

So of course the first thing I did when I arrived in Wellington over two years ago was to figure out what the starting point for the relationship was. I made three observations that I expect you can all relate to:

First, it has always been the case that we’ve enjoyed very deep people linkages across the Tasman – it’s why we refer to ‘family’ when we speak about each other. Myself included, most of us have a family member or two on the other side of the ditch.

Second, every relationship has its artefacts, the things that people point to when they try to describe it. For us it is a nostalgia about our historical links and the Anzac tradition, or banter about sport or who owns the pavlova. I mention this carefully, bearing in mind that we are in Bledisloe Cup season!

My third observation was the sheer breadth of touch points between us across virtually every dimension of national life. I’m referring not just to the commercial links you might see when you walk downtown, or how often our leaders meet.

It’s also in the way we do business as two nations. Whether it is on economic policy, tax regimes, immigration policy, tourism, emerging technology – on almost any given issue, we each look to the other for ideas or ways to connect.

There are particular challenges which arise from a relationship as broad as ours.

For a start, it can be very difficult to decide what matters most and where it is best to focus your energy or resources. You spread yourself too thin, because you are trying to do everything all at once.

There is also a risk that we take each other for granted. We know that the other will always be there, so we don’t really invest the time, thought and effort we might do otherwise to move the relationship forward. The risk of us drifting apart as we are preoccupied elsewhere becomes quite real.

That’s not a risk we can afford in the world we inhabit today.

A challenging global outlook

I don’t need to spell out to this audience the economic and strategic challenges facing everyone, but particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, today.

Australia’s Government has said we find ourselves in the most challenging strategic circumstances since the Second World War. In the words of Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, we now find ourselves in a ‘state of permanent contest’ in the Pacific.

We face multiple headwinds to our economic wellbeing, our social cohesion and to our security.

We see war and conflict. Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has led to a war that is now well in its second year.

In the Middle East, both Australia and New Zealand have repeatedly called for a ceasefire, and an end to the cycle of violence and conflict in Gaza, the release of hostages and a move to a two-state solution.

China’s challenges to international law and unsafe behaviour of Chinese vessels in the South China Sea risk miscalculation and escalation.

Climate change and sea level rise raise existential and economic risks to all countries but particularly to island nations in the Pacific, threatening food and water security.

It is becoming ever more difficult for countries to meet their economic priorities in a world of rising protectionism and threats to supply chains.

Technology brings great benefits but also risks to our institutions, democracies and economies through, for example, cyber attack or mis- and dis-information.

These, and many more, are significant concerns for our national interest.

In meeting these challenges, Australia is harnessing all our tools of statecraft. We are mindful of all our national assets – the resilience of our multicultural society, the strength of our economy and the power of our democratic institutions and rule of law.

As we confront a world of unprecedented disruptions, we are reminded of the value of having partners we know, trust and can depend on. None of us can face the headwinds alone.

This is where the Trans-Tasman relationship has increasing salience.

Australia counts New Zealand among our closest partners.

Australia and New Zealand each bring to our partnership unique view points, skills, ideas and capabilities.

Beneath it all lies a level of genuine trust that is rare in an increasingly contested international environment. That trust is a strategic asset.

So there is a strong case case for both our countries to look at our relationship with fresh eyes, and to consider how we can face these challenges together.

This, as it happens, is what is already happening now.

Moving the trans-Tasman relationship to a new stage.

As a first step, our two Prime Ministers Leaders agreed to a Trans Tasman Road Map to 2035 in August last year.

The Road Map sets out the five highest priorities where Australia and New Zealand should focus our efforts over the coming decade, to put us in the best position to meet global challenges in that time.

Its aim is, in the words of Prime Minister Albanese, to make our partnership “fit for the modern era”.

Those five priorities set out in the Road Map are in:

Modernising and streamlining our economic partnership
Deepening our alliance and cooperation on defence and security
Working together as partners in the Pacific
Upholding and advocating for our shared global values; and
Supporting the connections between our people.

Setting the frame for the future direction of our relationship, Prime Minister Albanese said as he stood alongside PM Luxon in Canberra in July.

“ours is more than a bond of old affection. It is a partnership driven by a new determination, one that recognises that together we’re stronger than just individual countries...”

Building on the Road Map, this year has seen a significant uplift in interactions between our ministers and Prime Ministers.

For example, in February, Australian and New Zealand Foreign and Defence Ministers met for the first time in a new “2+2” format known as ANZMIN.

This was the first time NZ had participated in a four-way meeting of this kind with any country. Ministers agreed this will be an annual meeting, reflecting the scale of geostrategic issues we are both now facing and our shared strategic interests in addressing them together.

In July this year, we held the second iteration of yet another “2+2” meeting – this time with Ministers for Climate Change and for Finance on both sides. It’s the only such 2+2 meeting of its kind in the world. And that’s because it makes sense to align our efforts to meet the economic, energy and climate transition we are both facing.

Implementing the Road Map

Ours is a leader-led relationship. So it is no surprise that Prime Ministers Albanese and Luxon have met on four separate occasions since November last year.

Their formal Leaders Meeting in Canberra only a few weeks ago in July was an opportunity to move forward action on the Road Map. I’ll sketch out some of the key points.

On our economic partnership

On the economic relationship, Prime Ministers acknowledged that the world we are in is very different to 1983 when we signed the Closer Economic Relations Agreement.

So, drawing on the work of the Climate and Finance Ministers 2+2, our Leaders agreed to work to ensure our standards for the Net Zero transition are consistent across the Tasman. They also agreed ways to make trans Tasman travel and work easier and more seamless, and to find opportunities for New Zealand businesses to be part of Australia's 'Future Made In Australia' initiative.

On national security and defence

As longstanding military allies, Prime Ministers committed to ‘deepen and expand our defence partnership’[Joint Statement] between our two nations.

They announced a vision for our defence forces ‘to be able to come together as an ‘Anzac’ force to respond to regional and global challenges’.

To achieve this, we are taking forward work on joint exercises, joint procurement, exchanges of senior military officers, closer integration of our defence industries, and "increasing our combined operational tempo and presence together in the Indo-Pacific" (Joint Statement).

And they also agreed that a serious cyber-attack on either nation could evoke Article IV of the ANZUS Treaty.

Beneath these agreements between the Prime Ministers there is a recognition that, irrespective of the differences in scale and capability between our defence forces, our security partnership matters.

We each stand to benefit most when our defence forces are interoperable – from joint disaster response through to joint maritime surveillance operations in our region.

This cooperation really matters in the Pacific. We have decades of experience working together in support of Pacific disaster response and security.

Most recently in April this year, we both provided crucial support to Solomon Islands to conduct their elections. At the request of Honiara, working alongside personnel from PNG and Fiji, ADF and NZDF personnel, ships and aircraft provided logistical support to transport ballot boxes and observers where they needed to go.

On working together in the Pacific

Indeed, nowhere is our collective effort and ambition more relevant than in the Pacific.

We are both Pacific nations with significant Pasifika populations among our people. We are both Pacific Island Forum countries. This region is our home.

Our future prosperity and our security is tied to that of our Pacific neighbourhood.

We want to be the partner of choice for Pacific nations.

Australia’s Falepili Union with Tuvalu is an example of the seriousness with which we approach this.

The agreement supports the people of Tuvalu to live and thrive in their home through land reclamation and investments in infrastructure, education and health.

At the same time it provides Tuvaluans the choice to live, study and work in Australia.

This is the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world, providing a pathway for mobility with dignity as climate impacts worsen.

And it provides a mutually beneficial security guarantee.

As in all our efforts in the Pacific, we recognise that how we partner matters as much as what we deliver.

We know that for the Pacific, climate change is the biggest security challenge as all countries grapple with the impacts of extreme weather events and disasters.

At last month’s Pacific Island Forum, Australia and New Zealand together announced we will invest a combined AUD42.6 million (NZD47.5 million) in the Pacific Humanitarian Warehousing Program, to assist Pacific and Timor-Leste partners prepare for and respond to disasters.

The program supports 14 Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste to store and manage disaster relief supplies required in those critical first 48 hours after a humanitarian emergency, the vital window to save lives.

The program is a response to Pacific priorities and is driven by Pacific governments. Strengthening local resilience, building the region’s expertise and supply chains and empowering community preparedness and response, are at the heart of this program.

This is an outstanding example, but not the only one, of where Australia and New Zealand bring our unique and different strengths to work together for the benefit of the Pacific.

The world may be changing around us, but our geography will not. So it is no surprise that, when Australia and New Zealand look out at the world, the first place we will always see is the Pacific.

Conclusion

Allow me to finish where I started, with the three observations I made at the outset.

First, we are family. We understand and trust each other. And, as we see in the Pacific, we also have a shared sense of being part of a wider Pacific family.

As the world becomes more challenging, it is to family we will increasingly turn and work with to meet these challenges.

Second, we cannot build a modern relationship based on touchstones such as the Anzac tradition or our shared love of sport. But we can build on those foundations to create a modern and active relationship for the future.

This is precisely what we are doing through the Road Map and through the kinds of agreements that our Leaders and Ministers are delivering when they meet.

And finally, while there is still a lot of activity right across the spectrum of the trans-Tasman relationship, we have better clarity on what matters.

We are now focusing on those areas which set us up best for the future – in strengthening our economic links; in deepening our security partnership and in harnessing our strengths as Pacific nations.

This is a big agenda, but one I feel hugely optimistic we can deliver on.

None of this work can be led by Governments alone.

We need to bring together all the key players – civil society, business, academia, and our best minds.

We need to harness our deep well of trust, our personal connections and our shared values.

As we each face multiple, concurrent challenges – domestically, regionally and globally – the Australia-New Zealand partnership matters now more than ever.

We have an opportunity to make a real difference to our nations and to our region if we get it right.

Far from being ordinary or unremarkable, this is now a relationship with great energy and dynamism.

It’s certainly an exciting time to be an Australian diplomat in New Zealand today. And I look forward to investing my efforts during my tenure to contributing to a stronger and more resilient relationship.

I look forward to our discussion and to exploring with you the ways we might achieve that together.

Thank you

High Commissioner: Address to NZIIA Nelson ‘Australia and New Zealand: a partnership in action’

ADDRESS TO NZIIA NELSON

‘Australia and New Zealand: a partnership in action’

10 September 2024

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e rau rangatira mā,

Tēnā koutou katoa

Ko au te māngai o te whenua moemoeā

Ko Harinder Sidhu tōkū ingoa

Ngā mihi mahana kia koutou katoa.

Introduction

I am delighted to be with you all this evening.

I’d like to thank the NZIIA Nelson Branch for the invitation to speak to you and for hosting tonight’s event, and to Oke Blaikie for your warm introduction and hospitality.

This is particularly special for me, as my first official visit to Nelson as High Commissioner. And looking at the beautiful country around here, I can’t believe I waited this long to visit!

I want to talk with you all tonight about the Australia-New Zealand relationship.

I will be the first to admit that this is not a topic that tends to light peoples’ fires. After all, what’s to discuss?

We’re so alike, after all. We know each other well and we see the world the same way - mostly. The relationship works well. Even where we have irritants, they are not showstoppers and our bonds are strong enough to go beyond them. In short, it is unexciting. Unremarkable, really.

What I hope to establish this evening, though, is that the trans-Tasman relationship is not just important, but that it is consequential.

And that, in the world we inhabit today, it is more consequential than it has been for decades.

If there were ever a right time for us to pay attention to, to nurture and to build our partnership, that time is now.

The foundations of our partnership

I see my role as High Commissioner as being very much a steward of the bilateral relationship.

So of course the first thing I did when I arrived in Wellington over two years ago was to figure out what the starting point for the relationship was. I made three observations that I expect you can all relate to:

First, it has always been the case that we’ve enjoyed very deep people linkages across the Tasman – it’s why we refer to ‘family’ when we speak about each other. Myself included, most of us have a family member or two on the other side of the ditch.

My third observation was the sheer breadth of touch points between us across virtually every dimension of national life. I’m referring not just to the commercial links you might see when you walk downtown, or how often our leaders meet.

It’s also in the way we do business as two nations. Whether it is on economic policy, tax regimes, immigration policy, tourism, emerging technology – on almost any given issue, we each look to the other for ideas or ways to connect.

There are particular challenges which arise from a relationship as broad as ours.

For a start, it can be very difficult to decide what matters most and where it is best to focus your energy or resources. You spread yourself too thin, because you are trying to do everything all at once.

There is also a risk that we take each other for granted. We know that the other will always be there, so we don’t really invest the time, thought and effort we might do otherwise to move the relationship forward. The risk of us drifting apart as we are preoccupied elsewhere becomes quite real.

That’s not a risk we can afford in the world we inhabit today.

A challenging global outlook

I don’t need to spell out to this audience the economic and strategic challenges facing everyone, but particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, today.

Australia’s Government has said we find ourselves in the most challenging strategic circumstances since the Second World War. In the words of Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, we now find ourselves in a ‘state of permanent contest’ in the Pacific.

We face multiple headwinds to our economic wellbeing, our social cohesion and to our security.

We see war and conflict. Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has led to a war that is now well in its second year.

In the Middle East, both Australia and New Zealand have repeatedly called for a ceasefire, and an end to the cycle of violence and conflict in Gaza, the release of hostages and a move to a two-state solution.

China’s challenges to international law and unsafe behaviour of Chinese vessels in the South China Sea risk miscalculation and escalation.

Climate change and sea level rise raise existential and economic risks to all countries but particularly to island nations in the Pacific, threatening food and water security.

It is becoming ever more difficult for countries to meet their economic priorities in a world of rising protectionism and threats to supply chains.

Technology brings great benefits but also risks to our institutions, democracies and economies through, for example, cyber attack or mis- and dis-information.

These, and many more, are significant concerns for our national interest.

In meeting these challenges, Australia is harnessing all our tools of statecraft. We are mindful of all our national assets – the resilience of our multicultural society, the strength of our economy and the power of our democratic institutions and rule of law.

As we confront a world of unprecedented disruptions, we are reminded of the value of having partners we know, trust and can depend on. None of us can face the headwinds alone.

This is where the Trans-Tasman relationship has increasing salience.

Australia counts New Zealand among our closest partners.

Australia and New Zealand each bring to our partnership unique view points, skills, ideas and capabilities.

Beneath it all lies a level of genuine trust that is rare in an increasingly contested international environment. That trust is a strategic asset.

So there is a strong case case for both our countries to look at our relationship with fresh eyes, and to consider how we can face these challenges together.

This, as it happens, is what is already happening now.

Moving the trans-Tasman relationship to a new stage.

As a first step, our two Prime Ministers Leaders agreed to a Trans Tasman Road Map to 2035 in August last year.

The Road Map sets out the five highest priorities where Australia and New Zealand should focus our efforts over the coming decade, to put us in the best position to meet global challenges in that time.

Its aim is, in the words of Prime Minister Albanese, to make our partnership “fit for the modern era”.

Those five priorities set out in the Road Map are in:

Modernising and streamlining our economic partnership

Deepening our alliance and cooperation on defence and security

Working together as partners in the Pacific

Upholding and advocating for our shared global values; and

Supporting the connections between our people.

Setting the frame for the future direction of our relationship, Prime Minister Albanese said as he stood alongside PM Luxon in Canberra in July.

“ours is more than a bond of old affection. It is a partnership driven by a new determination, one that recognises that together we’re stronger than just individual countries...”

Building on the Road Map, this year has seen a significant uplift in interactions between our ministers and Prime Ministers.

For example, in February, Australian and New Zealand Foreign and Defence Ministers met for the first time in a new “2+2” format known as ANZMIN.

This was the first time NZ had participated in a four-way meeting of this kind with any country. Ministers agreed this will be an annual meeting, reflecting the scale of geostrategic issues we are both now facing and our shared strategic interests in addressing them together.

Implementing the Road Map

Ours is a leader-led relationship. So it is no surprise that Prime Ministers Albanese and Luxon have met on four separate occasions since November last year.

Their formal Leaders Meeting in Canberra only a few weeks ago in July was an opportunity to move forward action on the Road Map. I’ll sketch out some of the key points.

On our economic partnership

On the economic relationship, Prime Ministers acknowledged that the world we are in is very different to 1983 when we signed the Closer Economic Relations Agreement.

On national security and defence

As longstanding military allies, Prime Ministers committed to ‘deepen and expand our defence partnership’[Joint Statement] between our two nations.

They announced a vision for our defence forces ‘to be able to come together as an ‘Anzac’ force to respond to regional and global challenges’.

To achieve this, we are taking forward work on joint exercises, joint procurement, exchanges of senior military officers, closer integration of our defence industries, and "increasing our combined operational tempo and presence together in the Indo-Pacific" (Joint Statement).

And they also agreed that a serious cyber-attack on either nation could evoke Article IV of the ANZUS Treaty.

Beneath these agreements between the Prime Ministers there is a recognition that, irrespective of the differences in scale and capability between our defence forces, our security partnership matters.

We each stand to benefit most when our defence forces are interoperable – from joint disaster response through to joint maritime surveillance operations in our region.

This cooperation really matters in the Pacific. We have decades of experience working together in support of Pacific disaster response and security.

On working together in the Pacific