Editorial: NZ needs to speak with one voice on trade

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the ASEAN summit in Nonthaburi, Thailand. AP Photo / Wason Wanichakorn

EDITORIAL

This weeks' conclusion of an upgrade to the free trade agreement between New Zealand and China is welcome. Sniping from the Opposition about it, and New Zealand's wider foreign policy positioning, is most certainly not.

The modest upgrade was two and a half years in the making - talks started in the last months of the former National government - and built on the free trade agreement first struck between Wellington and Beijing in 2008.

Although in train for years, concluding it was by no means assured. Relations between China and much of the west are rocky.

Canada is facing pressure from Beijing to intervene on court action that could result in a Huawei executive extradited to the United States to face fraud charges; Australia is grappling with the fallout of tax and national security investigations into China's influence on their political system; and, in the United States, president Donald Trump has all but in name declared trade war with Beijing.

But in an atypical move, National Party trade spokesman Todd McClay used the signing to go on the offensive against the Prime Minister, implying he would have secured a better deal for New Zealand and claiming trade officials have been "let down by a distracted government that has failed to prioritise trade".

Attacking the prime minister for not doing enough to further overseas trade, while McClay's colleagues lambast her for focusing too much on international issues at the expense of domestic, shows this criticism is insincere opportunism. It is also a bad look for New Zealand.

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arrives for her speech in the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit. AP Photo / Wason Wanichakorn

There has been a longstanding convention that foreign affairs - and particularly trade policy - should receive bipartisan support. Wild gyrations on the issue between the Labour and National parties emboldens competitors, incentivising foreign governments to put their fingers on the scale of our political system, and alarms allies into wondering whether a change in government could result in renegotiations to pre-existing agreements or, worse still, breaking them.

National and McClay are hardly pioneers in testing this convention. During the last election campaign, Labour loudly broke off support for the Trans Pacific Partnership, only to rediscover enthusiasm on the government benches and helping bring about the rebranded agreement.

New Zealand lacks the gravitas that comes with being one of the world's largest economies. The economy of the United States may survive the worst of Trump purely on the basis that its sheer size means even the wary must continue to engage.

In the absence of scale, the reliability and trustworthiness of New Zealand as a trading partner takes on extra significance and becomes our strongest - and arguably only - selling point. This must not be traded away for short-term partisan advantage.

One would hope National learned something from its leader Simon Bridges' recent trip to Beijing: when it comes to trade and international relations, there is inestimable value in a united front.