Within a day of being sworn in as Prime Minister, Sir John Key was on a plane to Lima, Peru for the Apec Leaders’ Meeting.
It was at the height of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.
Without waiting for the final election count to be tallied, Key, citingthe GFC as leverage, smashed together governing arrangements with the Māori Party, Act and United Future, starting negotiations soon after the November 8 election.
He was subsequently sworn in on November 19 and made it to Lima in time to give a speech at the Apec CEO Summit just two days later on the impacts on business from the GFC. He then got down to it with other Asia-Pacific heavyweight political leaders at their adjoining meeting.
New Zealand was punished by the crisis. Our companies found it difficult to get credit. As a former investment banker, Key’s address had cachet among the other invited leaders. They listened.
On the surface, the coming Apec meeting in San Francisco does not have the same urgency as the 2008 Apec. But dig a little deeper.
Think on the fragility of the global trading system where norms that have sustained economic growth for three decades are now undermined by a reversion to industrial policies overladen with a security imperative.
There is debate on whether Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend. The ground rules for a bilateral meeting with United States President Joe Biden are still being scoped.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin is seen as a pariah.
But from among the 21 member economies, there are many leaders that Prime Minister-elect Chris Luxon will want to meet.
Like Key, Luxon does want to attend his first Apec meeting after being sworn in as Prime Minister.
While he has opened talks with both Act leader David Seymour and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, they don’t appear to have the same urgency.
That may be because Luxon is keeping a tight rein on information flows.
He wants to get the chemistry right first and build a platform that will sustain governing arrangements for the three-year parliamentary term.
That really can’t be done in public.
The final vote tally won’t be made public until November 3. Luxon then has less than a fortnight to sew together governing arrangements before heading up to Apec for a range of bilateral meetings with other leaders as well as the main meeting on November 17 (US time).
There will be even further pressure if he is to attend the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in the Cook Islands which takes place the week before.
It is a mark of the uncertainty that yesterday, his predecessor Chris Hipkins was still featuring on the Apec CEO Summit programme as an invited speaker to take part in a fireside chat on “Trade policy as an enabler of inclusive growth”.
Hipkins is there as the New Zealand Prime Minister.
“Inclusive growth” has been a defining aspect of the Labour Government’s trade strategy.
It is a source of some irony that Labour, while in opposition before the 2017 election, strenuously opposed what was then the Transpacific Partnership, which was signed off by the Key Government, yet launched by Phil Goff back in the day when he was Labour’s Trade Minister.
New Zealand is in the chair this year also for the successor CPTPP agreement.
If Luxon does not have a Government in place by the time of Apec, he may still be able to attend. But not as Prime Minister.
The 21 Apec economies account for nearly 50 per cent of global trade. Photo / Getty Images
The protocol is unclear whether Hipkins would represent New Zealand, with Luxon enjoying observer status, and as Prime Minister-elect being able to represent New Zealand at a range of bilateral meetings.
Officials will be covering all options.
As a former Foreign Affairs Minister, Peters is well aware of Apec’s importance to New Zealand.
The 21 Apec economies account for nearly 40 per cent of the global population, or nearly 3 billion people, and nearly 50 per cent of global trade.
If Peters is of a mind, he could also leverage the short interval between the final vote tally on November 3 and Apec to exert some leverage of his own. Particularly given that he knows the importance Luxon will place on being present.
But let’s not ascribe motivations too soon.
San Francisco is getting ready for 30,000 leaders, officials, businesspeople, media and others to descend on the city.
The FBI, Secret Service and police have big security plans in place.
But it will be a different flavour to Peru.
Back then it was intriguing how many pisco sours were thrown back by Apec attendees from politics, officialdom and business. They were probably safer to drink than the local water, given the many attendees who later had to seek hospital treatment for various stomach ailments.
