Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will travel to Australia this week, leading a 30-strong trade delegation during a trip that will seek to sell New Zealand Inc, while also holding high-level bilateral meetings.
- Jacinda Ardern is travelling to Australia for the week.
- While there, she will meet PM Anthony Albanese, and Premiers Daniel Andrews and Dominic Perrottet of Victoria and NSW.
- She is leading a 30-strong business delegation, showcasing New Zealand goods and meeting with potential investors.
Ardern will meet the trade delegation on her way back from Europe, where she announced a new free-trade deal with the European Union. The trip will include stops in Melbourne and Sydney and meetings with the Premiers of Victoria and New South Wales, as well as with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
She will also give a major foreign policy speech at the Lowy Institute, a foreign policy think tank founded by Australian rich-lister and Westfield Mall founder Frank Lowy.
It is the latest round in a busy diplomatic push by Ardern to let the world know New Zealand is open for business.
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She will launch the New Zealand “Discover New” collaboration at David Jones’ main store in Sydney, and attend a dinner showcasing New Zealand high-end retail brands and featuring Kiwi food and drink.
Australia is still New Zealand’s most significant relationship. It is the second-largest trading partner with two-way trade worth $22 billion per year, as well as Aotearoa’s closest ally.
The relationship has gone through frosty patches in recent years, but New Zealand’s more hawkish foreign policy stance of the past couple of years and a new Labor government in Canberra look to improve trans-Tasman relations.
While in Sydney, Ardern and a number of New Zealand ministers will also attend the Australia-New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF).
“The forum is an important opportunity to engage with government and business leaders from both sides of the Tasman on our shared economic recovery in an increasingly uncertain world,” she said.
Over recent years, even before Covid, the forum had been pared back significantly, but this year a number of ministers will be attending in an expanded forum that butts up against a bilateral meeting with Albanese.
“I am pleased to be accompanied at the forum by ministers Robertson, O’Connor, Nash, Jackson, Wood, Verrall and Shaw, who will be meeting with their new Australian counterparts and engaging in policy discussions on a diverse range of economic issues.”
“We have invited key Ministers to join our meeting, enabling a richer discussion on issues of particular interest. Such conversations are more important than ever to ensure that we face this period of transition and renewal together, as allies and family,” she said.
It will be Ardern’s second trip to Australia this year.
