Doing it their way
At the UN Security Council’s December
meeting New Zealand showed the world it’s no megapower’s poodle.
The South Pacific nation co-sponsored
a successful motion demanding a halt to settlements in Palestine territory,
delighting much of the Islamic world and infuriating Israel.
Egypt drafted the motion also
sponsored by Malaysia, Senegal and Venezuela. The US which normally supports
Israel abstained from voting.
The win is more bark than bite as Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said no-way and pulled home his Wellington
ambassador. But it shows how a resolute and tiny Western country can write its
own script and play on the big stage.
Foreign Affairs Minister Murray
McCully told reporters the motion was “a victory for those who are keen to see
the Security Council take some action on the Middle East peace process after eight
years of complete inaction.”
McCully won’t be in airport VIP
lounges after May as it’s all change in Kiwi politics following PM John Key’s surprise
pre-Christmas decision to quit. The top job passed almost seamlessly to his
former deputy Bill English.
McCully has been ill and his exit
after eight years was expected. Front
runners for the position include Health Minister Jonathan Coleman, 51, and Trade
Minister Todd McClay, 48, former Ambassador to the European Union.
McClay’s background makes him the
logical choice. Coleman was formerly Defence Minister so also has international
experience.
Kiwis will vote sometime before
November; if the electorate rejects a
Keyless National Party Labour’s foreign
affairs spokesman David Parker, 56, could collect the portfolio. Policy shift
would be minimal as both parties agree on major issues.
Key’s departure while leagues ahead
in the polls, the economy bubbling and budget in surplus should be Politics 101
for leaders everywhere: How to play the dark arts without turning embittered
and becoming despised. Few will copy
because most practitioners start believing their own publicity and succumb to
hubris.
Had Soeharto resigned as
president when popular and development booming Indonesia would now be
dramatically different.
Key was a high-altitude money trader
working across world capitals when he returned home to revive the National
Party, becoming PM in 2008. Now he’s done it his way again – striding out of office
even though the seers said he’d win the next election.
This suggests Kiwis do politics
like civilised gentlefolk. Wrong. Most of Key’s 37 predecessors were knifed at
the ballot box, metaphorically stabbed by colleagues in factional brawls or literally
dying at their desks. He got labelled
‘the smiling assassin’ for despatching slouchers without making them rivals.
Key, 55, rationalized that a
fourth three-year term as PM (NZ has no restrictions on leadership tenure) would
damage his family and “make room for new talent”. Though usually a euphemism for
‘I’ve lost control of Cabinet’, seasoned
commentators reckon the reasons are genuine.
Key broke all rules governing
conservative parties, calling himself a “centrist and pragmatist” driven by
“common sense” rather than ego or ideology. He voted for gay marriage, still
unavailable in Australia, and ignored overseas trends to lift the pension age
though costs are crippling budgets as retirees live longer.
Despite his ease in high places
Key remained the happy guy next door, hard to hate. Even his Labour opponents said
he “served generously with dedication.” He stayed ordinary while being
extraordinary a quality seemingly shared by President Joko ‘Jokowi” Widodo.
Although representing only 4.5
million people Key’s goodbye was world news. His big mates in Washington,
London and Brussels called to wish him well. At his holiday hideaway in Hawaii
he plays golf with Barack Obama. Australian
PM Malcolm Turnbull reacted with Oz slang: ‘Say it ain’t so, Bro’. So all the more surprising that NZ backs
Palestine.
McCully, 63, a lawyer before
entering Parliament, worked backstage. Under his watch NZ’s strange
relationship with the US improved when the USS Sampson became the first
warship flying the stars and stripes to sail into Kiwi waters in 33 years.
NZ was a founder member of the
ANZUS security treaty but in 1986 under a Labour Government went nuclear free
banning visits by nuclear armed or powered vessels.
The snub astonished Australia and
outraged America but the acronym stayed intact; defence officials quietly kept
the three-way alliance afloat while their political masters stared at the
horizon.
National favours business and
farmers, a powerful force in local politics. Aotearoa, NZ’s Maori name, has been
an international human rights and social welfare pioneer and a model for others.
It was the first nation in the
world to give women the vote. It developed a massive government housing
program, pensions for all at 65, free public health and education, and no-fault accident insurance – policies dear to the electorate.
To pay for the goodies NZ has a
high tax economy dependent on tourism and food exports. Its farmer cooperative Fonterra has a milk
packing plant in Cikarang, West Java.
Key and McCully last visited
Indonesia in July. NZ doesn’t carry the Islamophobic baggage that weighs down
Australia’s relations with its northern neighbor so has a benign image in the
Archipelago embellished by backing Palestine.
However it’s a ferocious free trader against the Republic’s
protectionism.
Also in December the World Trade Organization upheld a NZ
/ US challenge to 18 agricultural non-tariff barriers allegedly costing Kiwi
exporters more than half a billion dollars. Indonesia will appeal.
Another potential clash zone has been flagged by incoming
ambassador Tantowi Yahya who plans to give Kiwis “accurate and up-to-date
information” about his country’s policies in West Papua.
Vocal NGOs highlighting alleged human rights abuses in
the province are unlikely to stay tuned into the former TV host’s message.
McCully set up consulates in Surabaya and Bali
to boost business and sell high-quality education. Aid has been channelled to develop geothermal
power projects where Kiwi engineers are experts.
Whoever becomes NZ’s FAM the little
nation at the bottom of the world will continue to do things its way.
(First published in Strategic Review - 13 January 2017)
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