Covid 19 coronavirus: Audrey Young - Where is the global response to a global crisis?

Illustration / Rod Emmerson

COMMENT:

Like most other aspects of daily life, the world of foreign relations and its work has been thrown into utter turmoil by the Covid 19 coronavirus.

Foreign affairs ministers - including Winston Peters working from the remote Whananaki estuary - and the elite public servants who staff their ministries are resembling eight-armed travel agents as they try to repatriate thousands of travellers stranded around the globe in various states of lockdown.

It has to be their priority: the first duty of any country is to the safety of its citizens.

But what appears to be missing alongside the domestic focus is a co-ordinated global response to a global crisis from bodies such as the United Nations, the G20, the G7, or the World Health Organisation.

Those who usually assert global leadership such as the European Union and the United States are consumed by their own crises.

It is every country for themselves at present while the virus prepares to engulf developing countries.

The United States seems to have just realised that there is little appetite for using the crisis to continue the geopolitical competition with China.

There is nothing wrong with questioning the veracity of China's reporting figures, as it has, or criticising China's appalling decision to expel the best watchdogs of the regime from the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall St Journal.

But when the result of criticism is counter-productive it has gone too far.

The insistence of the US at calling Covid-19 the Wuhan virus prevented the most basic statements of unified intent at the Security Council and G7 which are an essential prerequisite for unified action.

The UN Security Council has been woeful. If a pandemic is not a threat to security, what is?

Imagine if Helen Clark had been in charge what would have happened by now – a darned sight more action than is currently happening.

Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Global action is the best chance of limiting the damage in developing countries to something less than a catastrophe.

It is the best way of keeping supply chains open so countries can be fed and civil unrest can be kept at bay.

And, after the health crisis has waned, it will be the best way of getting a co-ordinated approach to a resumption of international travel and border-vetting standards and tracking of the virus.

Global efforts should be happening in parallel to the domestic responses.

Peters has been largely out of sight in the first week of lockdown and rightly focusing on immediate demands.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on the day the lockdown was announced, March 23, that he was essential to the Government's response and unlike most other people over 70, Peters was not being asked to self-isolate.

But it no doubt suited everyone in Government for him to ensconce himself in the Far North to conduct New Zealand's vital foreign relations work.

It allowed him to concentrate on devising a way to get more than 100,000 stranded visitors out of the country.

And it allowed the usual machinations of Coalition Government decision-making to be fast-tracked up when speed has been of the essence.

Most of New Zealand's closest partners in the West have gone into some form of lockdown.

But because New Zealand did it formally and suddenly – two and half days from the announcement to the actual lockdown - it trapped tens of thousands of unsuspecting visitors.

From Whananaki Central, over the past fortnight he has been in touch with counterparts in Australia, Britain, Chile, Peru, Spain, Germany, France and Denmark.

Peters and Ardern continued to privately argue the case of better treatment for Kiwis with their Australian counterparts, as they have since the Government was formed.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson will take over public presentation duties from Ardern on Fridays. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Their willingness to lobby publicly on the matter and not just behind closed doors has been one of the most visible differences between the former National Government and this one.

With the prospect of tens of thousands of working New Zealanders in Australia ending up on dole queues in New Zealand, the imperative was even stronger.

It is likely that Scott Morrison was persuaded by the reality that it would be just too hard to exclude New Zealanders or that he would lose too many high-skilled Kiwis from the Australian economy.

But Ardern and Peters deserve credit for perseverance.

The New Zealanders have been deemed eligible for the $A130 billion Job Keeper benefit announced on Monday, which gives businesses up to $1500 per employee a fortnight to keep jobs open and businesses afloat during the crisis.

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Ardern and Robertson have shouldered the Government's public responsibilities this week and are virtually the only members of Cabinet working from the Beehive.

They have continued to roll out tangible and remarkably fast responses to the economic crisis including yesterday's measures to temporarily relax aspects of the Companies Act that could otherwise force directors to declare their companies insolvent.

Robertson is so utterly accomplished in his role that he will now relieve the Prime Minister at Friday press conferences.

There is likely to be some debate, however, about whether the burden of front-facing should be shared among others, including Peters, as the lockdown continues and public patience wears thin.

Peters will remain focused on repatriation of foreigners for some time and he faces the even bigger problem of repatriating the smaller number of Kiwis scattered around the globe.

But before long, if not simultaneously, he will become more involved in ensuring a credible global response is under way from international organisations.

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website