Dr Bryce Edwards is Political Analyst in Residence at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the director of the Democracy Project.
Dr Bryce Edwards
democracyproject.nz
June 2, 2021
The level of orchestration and political acting was turned up a notch this week in Queenstown by Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison, who went to great pains to put on a highly contrived united front about their different orientations towards China. Clearly, both leaders were highly sensitive to the danger of the escalating tensions between the two countries getting out of hand, and consciously tried to dial back any public sense of differences.
The strategy was a tremendous success, resulting in dozens of media reports produced locally and overseas about the unity of the two leaders in the summit. It was a sharp contrast to the preceding weeks of increasing speculation about a split between the trans-Tasman counterparts over how to deal with Beijing.
The intense attempt to paper over the differences and to project a new common position on China has sparked further questions. Was it a case of Wellington being pulled into line over China? Or of Canberra having to move away from its critical stance towards Wellington’s foreign policy? It was probably a bit of both.
Newshub political editor Tova O’Brien portrayed the event as a deliberate move to prevent greater trans-Tasman conflict from breaking out:
“Like so many family feuds, the leaders dealt with it all by playing happy families”
O’Brien points out that despite all the superficial unity, in terms of substance, “there has been no shift on the major pressure points affecting the trans-Tasman relationship.” She argues that Australia managed to come out on top, with Ardern not actually winning any concessions on important issues for her country:
“There was plenty of talk but no real shifts in New Zealand’s favour on any of those pressure points. Australia does what it wants when it wants.”
The contrived unity of the leaders was emphasised by Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper, who describes the bilateral meeting as “highly orchestrated with them both walking on eggshells” – see: Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison’s fleeting trip to Queenstown highly orchestrated. He suggests the attempts to show unity is “a front simply because there’s trouble on the horizon [over China], and they will need each other”.
Soper reports that the level of personal friendship was played up for the public:
“They’re Scott and Jenny to our Prime Minister and our first couple are Jacinda and Clarke to their Prime Minister. Never since the days of sleepovers by John Key at the Sydney mansion of Malcolm Turnbull has there been such transtasman bonhomie.”
The degree that the media were controlled at the summit by government spin-doctors is conveyed, with Soper saying he tried to ask Morrison the “only unscripted question” of the press conference, and Ardern shut this down, saying:
“Oh look we won’t get into ad-libbing there Bri, Barry cos it’s not fair on everyone else”.
Soper responds to this in his column:
“That shows how stage managed this whole day was, journalists having to submit their questions in advance, presumably to ensure the experienced leaders aren’t blindsided and risk undoing all the love that had been so carefully expressed.”
For more on how stage-managed the event was, see Justin Giovannetti’s ‘How do you spell hongi?’ 26 hours in Queenstown with ScoMo and Jacinda. He playfully sums up the leaders meeting like this:
“In a carefully cultivated display of family love, the two prime ministers — or as they put it: Scott and Jacinda — declared their countries to be devoted to each other, despite meddling foreign influences trying to drive them apart.”
Giovannetti reports that despite a media presence of about 50 people, New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs insisted on allowing only four questions, in advance, from each country’s respective media pack. The end result was that politicians were the winners, with little changing: “Both prime ministers got to go home with a win. Neither changed anything about their positions on China.”
Ardern and Morrison acted as a kind of tag-team against reporters’ attempts to find differences over the China issue. This is conveyed well in Jo Moir’s article, Scott Morrison kills any notion of China rift. She says that media were confronted by a “cuddle puddle”, and during the interview session, “Morrison was there to ‘concur’ and ‘agree’ with Ardern at every turn.”
Moir is unconvinced by Morrison’s repeated attempts to dissuade the media that the Australian Government is onside with Wellington’s approach towards China, and explains what she thinks is going on:
“The Australian media haven’t created a China narrative out of thin air and the questions put to the leaders came from a place of some knowledge and insight from within Morrison’s government. It doesn’t make political sense for Morrison to speak of a war between New Zealand and Australia in such a public setting, and he is no doubt happy to leave that [anti-New Zealand message] to officials leaking to media and comments from his own colleagues, like his Defence Minister Peter Dutton.”
Moir also comments on the one area that the two leaders had obviously decided to allow differences to be shown:
“The only thing the pair found something to disagree on during formal talks was the old trans-Tasman battle over Australia’s hard-line deportation policy.”
Heather du Plessis-Allan has characterised the meeting as a contrived “love fest” in which “ScoMo and Jacinda really want you to know they’re best friends right now” – see: Ardern and Morrison laid it on thick in Queenstown love fest.
Here’s her account of the attempt to at fake unity:
“Both Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern went out of their way to convince us that they are friends. Jacinda Ardern mentioned more than once how often they talk to each other, saying at one stage during the Covid response she was in more contact with ScoMo than her mum. They swapped jerseys, and they drove it home by trying very hard to call each other by their first names. No Prime Minister Ardern and Prime Minister Morrison here. It was all Jacinda and Scott.”
Du Plessis-Allan says the strategy was “obviously an attempt to kill off perception that New Zealand is cosying up to China, and splitting from its western allies.” As to why this would be, she speculates on the possible audience being China, the US, or just all the critics of New Zealand’s orientation to China. It might also be a part of a general move by New Zealand more back into line with Australia:
“Some believe New Zealand has realised its error in cosying up to China and is correcting it.”
This article can be republished under a Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project.