Australia and New Zealand’s ‘mateship’ tested over terror suspect, China ties

Ardern’s spat with Morrison has exposed cracks in the trans-Tasman relationship, including over a dual national Isis suspect and each other’s ties to China

Experts say the fault lines reveal the traditionally close relationship cannot be taken for granted amid ‘challenges to the international order’

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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison shakes hands with his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern in Auckland. File photo: AFP

Published: 5:00am, 21 Feb 2021Updated: 11:05am, 4 Mar 2021

It was the kind of broadside that might be expected between bitter adversaries, not close friends and allies.

“New Zealand, frankly, is tired of having Australia exporting its problems,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, as she took her country’s closest neighbour to task for cancelling the citizenship of a dual national who was arrested in Turkey over suspected links to Islamic State (Isis).

Even though the 26-year-old woman hadn’t lived in New Zealand since she was six years old and had family in Australia, Wellington had been left solely responsible for her and two children, Ardern said.

“If the shoe were on the other foot, we would take responsibility,” she said in frank remarks aimed at her Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Tuesday. “That would be the right thing to do and I ask Australia to do the same.”

Morrison defended the move as in Australia’s national security interests, saying those who fight with terrorist organisations should not be “enjoying privileges of citizenship”.

While Australia-New Zealand relations have long been likened to a sibling rivalry, Ardern’s unusually blunt comments have cast a light on deeper fissures that have emerged in recent years between the neighbours, who are closely entwined by culture, history and trade, as well as membership of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance that also includes the United States, Britain and Canada.