Authors     Benedict Xu-Holland and Harry Berger

​When Trade Minister David Parker signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in Chile on 8 March it came just a few weeks after the Labour-led coalition government released a National Impact Assessment of the deal. In a series of interviews Parker argued that Labour was signing TPP-11 for pragmatic reasons (he gave the agreement a ‘7 out of 10’). Walking away from the deal, he said, would mean New Zealand would suffer a net-loss from a decline in investment and trade opportunities. The evidence Parker cited was largely based on the country's prior preferential trade agreements (PTAs). For example, he said the 2008 New Zealand–China Free Trade Agreement (NZCFTA) was the reason for the huge increase in trade and investment between the two countries in the last decade. ​

​But how persuasive are Mr. Parker’s claims? Without detailed post-hoc modelling it is near impossible to credibly infer causality between New Zealand's PTAs and aggregate trade growth. A host of variables may be responsible, from changing migration patterns to a shift to consumption-based growth. Australia, which only signed a PTA with China in late 2015, saw its own trade quadruple during the previous decade. In light of this, can New Zealand credibly attribute our success to the NZCFTA? And what does this mean for claims made about the CPTPP?

Author      Joanna Spratt 

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ recent ‘Shifting the Dial’ speech brought some welcome clarity to the new government’s foreign policy, complementing Prime Minister Ardern’s first foreign policy speech of a few days earlier. Delivered in Sydney, Peters’ speech focused on New Zealand’s neighbourhood: Australia and Pacific Island Countries. What did the speech signal for New Zealand’s development cooperation efforts under the Ardern government?
 
The most interesting part of the Minster’s speech was the ‘shift of the dial’ in working with the Pacific. New principles now underpin New Zealand’s “shared destiny” with Pacific Island Countries: understanding, friendship, mutual benefit, collective ambition, and sustainable results. Underpinning these principles is the assertion that New Zealand has a common identity with the Pacific, and therefore similar interests. This is the analysis that led to the integration, about a year ago, of MFAT’s Pacific Division and the Pacific Aid Programme. The Minister’s speech is a clear articulation of what this integration can mean in diplomatic terms.
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Author    Jon Fraenkel

During a whistle-stop tour of Samoa, Tonga, Niue and the Cook Islands, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has promised a ‘reset’ of Pacific policy. She says her government can and will do better in the region. Speaking at the Lowy Institute in Australia on March 1st, Foreign Minister Winston Peters stressed the need to ‘shift the dial’ on New Zealand’s Pacific policy. But beyond a few new projects to build roads, provide cyclone relief, and assist small businesses, and a sensible revision to rules about portability of pensions, what is really likely to change as regards New Zealand’s Pacific policy?
 
Much of Mr Peters’ Lowy Institute speech offered the familiar warm words about New Zealand’s distinctive Pacific identity, but he also indicated considerable ‘anxiety’ about China’s presence in the region. Bearing hallmarks of continuity rather than change, Mr Peters echoed the focus of his predecessor on ‘sustainable economic development’. That prioritization has been contested by some critics of former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully’s aid policy, who prefer instead a focus on poverty alleviation and social welfare.   

Author     David Capie

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gave us the clearest sense yet of the direction New Zealand’s coalition government will take in foreign policy in a speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs in Wellington this week. 
 
Any Prime Minister’s first big foreign policy speech attracts interest, but given Ardern sits at the head of an ideologically diverse three-party government, her address drew closer scrutiny than most. The Prime Minister faced the dual challenge of laying out a fresh new foreign policy vision while juggling the diverse interests of her New Zealand First and Green Party partners.
 
In this, the speech was largely successful. 

Authors     Robert Ayson and David Capie

If Bill English wasn’t preparing to enjoy his retirement and was instead getting stuck into his first full term as Prime Minister, it is almost certain that his government would be planning to extend its military contribution in Iraq. National's decision might have been broadly predictable, but the same cannot be said for Jacinda Ardern’s Labour-led coalition. What the Prime Minister and her Cabinet colleagues choose to do on Iraq presents a series of challenges in the weighing of international and domestic expectations.

The latter are not to be sniffed at. When John Key finally announced in February 2015 that New Zealand would send forces to join their Australian counterparts at Taji, Labour’s leader of the time Andrew Little was quick to oppose that decision. When the mission was renewed in mid-2016, Labour and its two current political partners – New Zealand First and the Greens - all indicated that they did not support an extension of New Zealand's military presence. 

​Author   Robert Ayson

​Meetings between New Zealand and Australian foreign ministers are a regular occurrence. They rarely produce moments of novelty or excitement in Trans-Tasman relations. But on the occasion of Julie Bishop’s visit to meet Winston Peters at picturesque Waiheke Island, we have good reasons to pay close attention. On the assumption that the two governments will release a readout of their meeting, here are the five things I think need to be included.
 
First, while it may seem completely routine for the two foreign ministers to emphasise the importance of the trans-Tasman relationship, that point is more poignant than usual. It would be a further signal of the determination on both sides of the ditch to get beyond the noisy atmospherics over the Manus detainees and claims of political interference. 

Michael Powles

​There can be no doubt that the international environment in which New Zealand will have to operate in the decades ahead will be enormously more difficult than the environment we’ve been used to. The facts pointing to China’s coming economic preponderance and the political power that will give it, regionally and globally, seem indisputable.
 
Nevertheless, a few observers seem to believe that if several other countries act together, under US leadership, China’s power could somehow be contained. I believe that they are simply ignoring clear facts. Perhaps there is an element of wishful thinking. “Past policies have been successful – let’s just continue them.” I’m reminded of the man who’s said to have jumped off the top of the Empire State Building in New York and to have been heard shouting, as he passed the 50th floor on his descent, “Fine, so far!”

Author    Christian Novak

On page six of the Labour-NZ First coalition deal, under the innocuous heading ‘other’, is an agreement to work towards a free trade agreement (FTA) with Russia. Given Winston Peters’ previous criticism of the National Government over its suspension of an FTA with the Russian-led Eurasian Customs Union, the move should hardly come as a surprise.

For Mr Peters, a past cabinet minister in both Labour and National-led governments, the policy continues his somewhat maverick brand of politics. In May last year he addressed the British House of Lords, imploring the UK public to be ‘bold’ and ditch the European Union (EU). And, following Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election, he labelled the result ‘a dramatic lesson’ for the political establishment.
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The most puzzling aspect of Peters’ plan for a Russia FTA, however, is its timing. New Zealand’s diplomats are currently working toward a lucrative free trade agreement with the EU, which happens to be a more significant trade partner than Russia. Although Prime Minister Jacinda Adern has come out publicly to say the EU deal—not the Russian FTA—is the priority, the announced policy is worth exploring because it breaks ranks with like-minded governments.

Author:       Robert Ayson

​At some point the previous government’s big money promise for defence equipment was going to run into political reality. But courtesy of the Ardern government’s arrival, it is happening faster than expected.
 
Treasurer Grant Robertson is asking all departments to ensure their spending plans are in line with the new government’s priorities. These obviously include initiatives in housing, education, health and child poverty. It’s not clear that military spending is anywhere near the top of the list. 

Author     B K Greener

A recent article by Victoria University’s Robert Ayson drew attention to the current weakening of US engagement in the region and China’s growing influence. In his piece Ayson raises a number of salient points. An emphasis on multilateralism and working with other countries to engage with both China and the USA is indeed key to New Zealand’s foreign policy. Yet he also suggests that “One of the unwritten rules of New Zealand’s recent foreign policy is that we can be comfortable with a rising China because the US has been there to reassure the region.” Ayson is not necessarily suggesting that the US is currently this reassuring presence (his piece smacks of some concern about the turbulence created by the current Trump administration), but it is still important to note the limitations of the idea that the US has always been a reassuring presence.

The US did ‘bolt the back door’ for New Zealand in World War Two, and a reliance on this relationship was cemented after the war by the signing of the ANZUS Treaty. The relationship remained strong until the effective suspension of New Zealand from ANZUS in the mid-1980s in punishment for its non-nuclear policy. It is this latter event which automatically highlights the contentious nature of any claim that the US has necessarily ‘reassured the region’. Tensions have arisen in the past and, despite a recent warming of relations between the two countries, conflicts are even more likely to arise with President Trump at the helm. Thus Steve Hoadley has pointed to “substantial policy differences over reliance on nuclear weapons, military assertiveness, economic protectionism, immigration restrictions and walls, and climate change denial, to name but a few”. Although administrations come and go, the consistent claim that New Zealand and the USA ‘share common values’ is already being worn thin by, for example, Washington’s reducing the emphasis on human rights in its foreign policy.