After Scott Morrison’s election-night ‘miracle’ in 2019, the angels seem to be on Anthony Albanese’s side as Australian voters head to the polls. While New Zealand has made campaign cameos, major change in the trans-Tasman relationship is unlikely, Sam Sachdeva writes
Australia may be known as the lucky country, but Kiwis looking across the ditch at the candidates to be the country's next prime minister could be forgiven for questioning that moniker.
On one side is incumbent Scott Morrison, with net approval rating of -11 in the most recent Newspoll. On the other, Labor leader Anthony Albanese, also at -11.
That Morrison is even in position to win another term is something of a surprise: Labor had held a lead over the Coalition (on a two-party preferred basis) in almost every poll between the 2016 and 2019 elections, only for Morrison to defy predictions with what he described as a “miracle”.
The result has left pundits wary of making sweeping predictions this time around, but it would take a miracle of another order for the Coalition to maintain its grip on power.
While Labor’s lead ranged between two and four points during the last campaign, the party has sat between four and 10 points ahead since this year’s election was called (bar one outlier on each end of the scale).
Morrison’s task has been further complicated by the “teal independents”, a group of largely female, blue-green candidates mounting campaigns to unseat Liberal incumbents while advocating for greater climate action.
Albanese has hardly been an inspiring candidate, but simply not being Morrison may be enough to get his party across the line.
“What that [economic] shield has done has ensured that what others are experiencing in other countries has not happened to the same extent here. Those almost seven percent inflation rates in New Zealand could have been here." - Scott Morrison, Australian Prime Minister
As is often the case for the relationship between a big brother and their younger sibling, New Zealand politicians probably spend more time thinking about Australia than vice versa - but events in Aotearoa have on occasion made their way into the discussion.
In a debate with Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne last week, Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong appeared to take inspiration from Nanaia Mahuta’s work on an indigenous-inspired foreign policy.
Wong said Labour would “deliver a First Nations foreign policy that weaves the voices and practices of the world's oldest continuing culture into the way we talk to the world, and in the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade”.
The party’s policy for the Pacific also includes a commitment to develop a new visa lottery for nationals of the region and Timor-Leste, “modelled on the New Zealand Pacific Access Resident Category visa”.
Morrison in turn included New Zealand among the exemplars for a new housing policy announced this week, which would allow Australian first home buyers to make partial withdrawals from their superannuation for a deposit.
Not all references to the trans-Tasman relationship have been positive: pressed on the cost of living crisis and rising inflation in early May, the Prime Minister sought to contrast his government’s performance favourably with that of New Zealand.
“What that [economic] shield has done has ensured that what others are experiencing in other countries has not happened to the same extent here. Those almost seven percent inflation rates in New Zealand could have been here."
Major trans-Tasman change unlikely
But when it comes to the bilateral relationship with New Zealand, as well as the rights of the more than 600,000 Kiwis living in Australia, there has been little if any discussion - and the prospect of significant change seems equally limited.
On the deportation of convicted ‘New Zealanders’ who in some cases have lived in Australia since they were children - a policy Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has repeatedly described as being “corrosive” to the relationship - Albanese has suggested little appetite for change, telling Channel Nine in 2019 that “the balance is essentially right”.
Labor last year opposed the Morrison government’s efforts to ease the way for further deportations through a more stringent character test, but the party opted against voting it down in the House of Representatives when it was reintroduced this year.
It did however flag amendments to reduce the effect on New Zealanders when the bill went to the Senate, although Parliament rose before the upper house could pass the legislation.
While some expat groups look favourably to Labor’s policies on citizenship for Kiwis, the party has committed only to “consider[ing] the permanent residency status and potential citizenship arrangements for New Zealand citizens living in Australia”.
China has been a flashpoint during the campaign, with Morrison accusing Albanese of siding with Beijing and the Labor leader in turn suggesting the Prime Minister had dropped the ball by allowing the Solomon Islands to sign a security deal with China.
Wong has nonetheless been at pains to promise continued fortitude on the matter: “An Albanese Labor government would not take a backwards step when it comes to standing up for Australia’s interests,” she said during the foreign policy debate.
A change of administration may lead to a less belligerent tone, but the underlying fundamentals driving the tensions in the relationship - and the contrast with New Zealand’s ties with China - seem unlikely to change.
At a higher level, Ardern could find it easier to work with a fellow Labo(u)r leader in Albanese than Morrison, with whom the relationship has seemed professional rather than warm.
But New Zealand prime ministers are no strangers to working with Australian leaders of a different political stripe: both Helen Clark and John Key spent the majority of their time in power dealing with a counterpart from the other side of the aisle.
Asked by Newsroom whether the Government expected any policy changes in the event of a new administration in Australia, Mahuta said: "We will continue to strengthen the nature of our close relationship and continue to raise the issues that are of most concern to us."
Just as some of the recent hardening of Australia’s immigration policy appears baked in, so too is the geographical and cultural closeness with New Zealand which prevents a dramatic divide between the two nations.
