Barry Soper: Does Malcolm Turnbull really see us as family?

Malcolm Turnbull said it time and time again, he sees us as family. He couldn't emphasise it enough, we're kindred spirits, the two closest nations on earth, we're equals.

It's a big brother charm that seems to work. John Key went all gooey when the Aussie laid it on, so much so that he once had a sleepover at Turnbull's multimillion dollar Pt Piper mansion in Sydney.

Unfortunately for Bill English he never experienced an at home with the Turnbulls. They had their annual get together last year when it was New Zealand's turn and they met in the hellhole of Queenstown. It may as well have been a hellhole because when they had their media scrum it was in a blacked out room in a hotel, forget about the view of The Remarkables and the lake when they pulled the drapes.

In stark contrast the Turnbull scrum with Jacinda Ardern was held on the front lawn of the Prime Minister's official Sydney residence, which is grand enough, although by comparison to his next door neighbour the Governor-General's Admiralty House, it's a bit of a state house.

Still the views are magnificent, across the busy waterway from the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. A better backdrop for a media scrum you'd be hard pressed to find, although Queenstown would come close if only the boffins realised it.

View this post on Instagram

Welcome @jacindaardern & Clarke to Sydney. Thanks for joining us for dinner at home tonight. See you tomorrow!

A post shared by Malcolm Turnbull (@turnbullmalcolm) on Mar 1, 2018 at 3:01am PST

Earlier Ardern had inspected her first guard of honour and the spongy, plush lawns could have been a challenge for her high heels but she seemed to navigate the blades in her stride. A bit like the Queen, she stopped here and there to speak to the soldiers, sailors and airmen with their eyes fixed at attention straight ahead of them. Usually male leaders give them little more than a cursory glance as they stroll by.

So they made the best of the Sydney charms for Ardern to remember, with the main one being the at home with Turnbull himself. Like Key before her she was gushing about his hospitality and apparently her partner Clarke Gayford was too, more like overawed.

So the scene was set in Turnbull's favour for the talks that were to follow the next day with Ardern declaring, on the immoral deportation of so called New Zealand criminals to our country because they posed too much of a risk to Australians, that she would talk as tough to him as she does to us about it. She emerged talking tough saying while she didn't like it there's nothing that can be done about it. It was the same response as her predecessors; the Aussies were entitled by law to do what they're doing.

When I put it to Turnbull that it may have been legal but it was immoral, he shrugged and said it's not only New Zealanders who are treated that way; it's everyone who breaks the rules.

But hang on, we're family, would he treat a member of his family that way by putting them at risk?

He offered me a job as an advocate. It'd be worth taking up if I really believed the dross they've created on their side of the ditch would stay there!