The treatment Australian Prime Minister Scott Morison is receiving in America highlights the stark difference in the regard in which New Zealand and Australia are held by President Trump. It shows the contrast between being a trusted ally and just a friend.
It also brings into focus the disparity of leadership abilities of the respective prime ministers. One has the ability to make the hard decisions based purely on the evidence in front of him and knowing what is the correct call to make. He is a leader who understands where the world is at the present time and the part Australia should rightfully play in it.
The other defers to working groups and, as Suze has pointed out, most likely Helen Clark, who it seems is very much creating a cacophony in the background. What we all knew from the outset is now becoming more obvious by the day. Jacinda is not up to the task of being prime minister either at home or abroad. She is fast becoming an embarrassment to this country, and the likes of President Trump are giving her a few minutes of their valuable time out of pure courtesy.
Compare this to Scott Morrison. On his state visit he will dine on a fillet of Dover sole under the stars in a Rose Garden arrayed in shades of green and gold in tribute to his nation’s national colours. His is Donald Trump’s first state dinner in over a year. Morrison is just the second world leader to be granted the high diplomatic honour of a state visit during the Trump administration. He was welcomed to the White House with a pomp filled military arrival ceremony on the South Lawn.
Dinner centrepieces featured more than 2,500 roses in shades of yellow, and Australia’s national flower, the wattle. Morrison said “There are many larger, I suppose, more powerful friends that America has, but they do not have a more sure and steadfast friend than Australia”. Could Jacinda say that? In all honesty no, but with her track record of mendacity it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility. Not that it really matters as her chances of getting a state dinner are about as good as Labour winning Hunua.
It is a sorry fact that Winston Peters decided to put personal grievances ahead of the good of the country and installed in office a person who doesn’t even know which country she’s landed in. Her grasp of world affairs goes no further than what’s written in the United Nations playbook of
If we are to be taken seriously on the world stage again this lady and her rag tag bunch of numskulls need to be dispatched at the earliest opportunity, i.e. next year, or before if the opportunity arises.