Explainer: Prime Minister
Christopher Luxon has decried a “real media beat-up”
surrounding his spat with Foreign Minister Winston Peters
over the country’s response to the United States’
tariffs.
What follows is a timeline of the relevant
comments, allowing readers to judge for
themselves.
Thursday, 10 April – 8am: Luxon delivers
speech to Wellington Chamber of Commerce
“New Zealand
will continue to work with like-minded countries to promote
free trade as a path to prosperity and explore the role of
the CPTPP in strengthening that vision. One possibility is
that members of the CPTPP and the European Union work
together to champion rules-based trade and make specific
commitments on how that support plays out in
practice.
“As prime minister, I have a responsibility
to do everything I can to both bolster the existing
rules-based order and to further strengthen New Zealand’s
position offshore… it’s why I will be on the phone later
today to world leaders comparing notes on world trade, and
testing what we can do together to buttress the rules-based
trading system.
“Free trade works. It lifts incomes.
It creates jobs. It builds partnerships. And it secures
peace. I think that’s worth fighting for – and I’m up for
that fight.”
Thursday, 10 April – 1.55pm: Peters
responds to media questions on his way into Parliament’s
Question Time
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Q: What do you think of the idea that
the prime minister spoke about this morning: of getting the
CPTPP countries and Europe together and kind of building a
trading bloc?
A: This is all very
premature.
…
Q: So you don’t think he will
have any success in trying to promote that idea?
A:
Well, look, we’re trying to sort out this other thing with
America and China’s trade war, and we’re rushing off with
solutions. Let’s find out what happened there
first.
Q: Did the prime minister not consult you
before he made that speech?
A: Next question.
Q:
When you talk about people who should have held their
counsel and hung tight, does that extend to the prime
minister?
A: I just answered your question. You’ve got
the full answer, and now you’re trying to turn it into
controversy. See you, guys.
Thursday, 10 April – 3pm:
Peters responds to media questions on his way out of
Parliament’s Question Time
Q: Did the prime minister
discuss with you the idea of trying to get the CPTPP
countries and EU countries together in order to formulate
some sort of joint response to the US action?
A:
No.
Q: Why hasn’t he discussed that with you?
A:
Well, why don’t you ask him?
Q: Would you expect to
have that discussed with you – given you’re the foreign
minister?
A: The fact is that I’ve taken the stance
that experience matters. In this case, wait until we see
what emerges with the tariff war that’s going on. It’ll come
to a resolution much quicker than people think. And as in
the last 24 hours, we’ve already seen the beginnings of
that. So let’s not panic here.
Q: Is this naivety from
the prime minister?
A: No, you go and ask the prime
minister why he did that. I’m telling you what my position
is.
Q: Right, and –
A: All you’re trying to do
is try to get some sort of difference between me and the
prime minister.
…
Q: What’s wrong with the
idea of trying to engage with other leaders?
A: Well,
what would you talk about? What’s the tariff regime going to
be in the end? Do we know what that’s going to be? No, if we
don’t know what it’s going to be, what would you actually
talk about? Think about it.
Q: Would you discourage
him from having these talks?
A: No, no, no. I’m asking
you to ask some of those questions yourself. I’m not the
person you should be asking. I’m telling you the logic and
rationale behind my behaviour, and those are questions I
answer. I don’t answer for other people. For God’s sake,
start doing your job properly.
Q: Aren’t you a
representative of this government though?
A:
Friday, 11 April – 1.30pm: Luxon
responds to media questions in Hamilton
Q: On trade,
Winston Peters says your phone calls with world leaders
yesterday were premature. How do you respond to
that?
A: I don’t think that’s… the context of the
question that was asked to him on the tiles.
But what
I’d just say to you is: I gave a pretty broad-ranging speech
yesterday on trade which was appropriate given the week that
we’ve been experiencing. And over the course of yesterday, I
was doing three things, really.
One was reaching out
to key bilateral partners for New Zealand to say: what more
could we be doing together in a world where we have a
like-minded approach to trade? Why don’t we- what more can
we be doing to turn this up?
Secondly, to sort of
understand how they have been interpreting the events of the
last week and what that means for them and their
economies.
And then thirdly, making the case that we
should be reaffirming the principles of free trade together.
So whether that’s in an ASEAN bloc, whether it’s in a CPTPP
bloc. I also spoke to the president of the European Union
last night, and our conversation was: if you think about the
27 countries in the EU, if you think about the CPTPP
countries, how do we not introduce new impediments to trade
moving around the world?
We will continue to work
constructively with the US. The US is obviously 13 percent
of global trade, but there are also other trading blocs that
actually just are like-minded, and we’ll continue to keep
working hard there.
Friday, 11 April – 3.30pm: Peters
responds to RNZ questions in Tonga
Q: The prime
minister made calls overnight with some world leaders,
partly to reaffirm the principles of free trade and discuss
what more can be done in response to the current economic
situation globally. What do you think about this?
A:
Look, markets lose their nerve. Share market speculators
lose their nerve. Politicians should not lose their nerve,
and that’s my advice. There’s no need to react at this point
in time. Let’s first find out what we’re dealing with. Let
the dust settle in – that’s been my advocacy from the day
this matter came up with the Trump tariffs. Our job is to be
ultra-careful, ultra-forward-thinking in the interests of,
guess what, the New Zealand economy. That’s what matters,
not our egos. So my advice to politicians is: tone down,
wait till you see and know what’s going on.
Q: Have
you been in touch with the prime minister’s office?
A:
No, he didn’t check it out when he made that speech and made
those phone calls. And so I hope that he’ll get my message
and he’ll call me next time.
Sunday, 13 April – 9am:
Peters delivers a speech in Hawai’i
“In recent weeks,
the tendency to hype up a debate about how international
trade works into a black-and-white, polarising issue has
been unfortunate and misguided. The use of military language
– of a “trade war”, of the need to “fight”, of the
imperative to form alliances in order to oppose the actions
of one country – has at times come across as hysterical and
short-sighted.
“For a small country like New Zealand,
when events are moving fast and changing day-by-day, the
best course is almost always to be cautious, to be modest,
to be pragmatic, and to be practical. To wait for the dust
to settle before making choices we may later
regret..
…
“We will continue to promote
careful, pragmatic, quiet dialogue – aimed at deescalation
and practical problem solving, rather than premature
posturing.”
Monday, 14 April – 7.35am: Luxon answers
questions on NewstalkZB
Q: Is Winston Peters right in
saying you’re a bit hysterical?
A: I think actually –
I don’t know where – that’s a real media beat-up, that
story. Because, actually, if you think about what he’s
actually saying, we’re saying the same thing, which is that:
we’ve been pretty cool, calm and collected in responding to
this thing.
I think commentators would admit that. My
calls to leaders are doing exactly the same thing: where are
you at? How are you responding? It’s important everyone has
cool heads. The second thing is they’re good conversations,
because it’s like, what more can we and should we be doing
in a bilateral sense?
And the third thing is that I’m
making sure that the blocs, like the EU and the CPTPP and
ASEAN, what we don’t want them doing is tit-for-tat tariffs
between each other. You know, we want to make sure that they
are affirming the rules operating within dispute mechanisms
that we’ve got in place. We don’t need the pressure going
the other way, across the different blocs – and on the US, I
just say, look, we’ve got a positive, constructive
relationship with the US, and we’ll continue to do
so.
Monday, 14 April – 7.50am: Luxon answers
questions on RNZ Morning Report
Q: Doesn’t look good
for you and the foreign minister, deputy prime minister to
be publicly at odds over a crucial issue like this, does
it?
A: Well, we’re not actually, we’re fully
aligned… we both agree that tariffs and trade wars are
bad. We both think cool, calm and collected approaches are
what is needed from ourselves and from our partners. We’ll
continue to build out our US relationship, and we’re
strengthening our bilateral ones. So from our side, whether
it’s Winston and I, whether it’s the five ministers dealing
with it, and frankly, our whole cabinet, we’re very aligned
on our approach.
Q: Okay, let’s delve into that a
little more. Because firstly, on Friday, in terms of you
making the calls to several world leaders, Mr Peters had
said that you should call him next time. So that’s not
really aligned, is it?
A: Well, I mean, I just say to
you, my ministers are fully empowered. They’re big people
and big jobs. They’re empowered to communicate and make
decisions as they see fit. And they don’t expect them to
share speeches with me, and I certainly don’t expect to
share my speeches with them, either. But I just say to you
that we’ve talked about this as a cabinet. We are very, very
focused on it, and I appreciate the media may want to beat
this into something that it isn’t.
Q: No, no. I just
want to push back on that, because he has criticised you for
making those calls without talking to him first. So that is
not alignment. That’s a disagreement which has been
expressed in public.
A: I have relationships with
leaders around the world that I’ve built, obviously over the
last 16 months or so, and all we’re doing is exactly what we
have said we would do.
Tuesday, 15 April – 5.30pm:
Peters responds to RNZ questions in Hawai’i
Q: The
prime minister has called your comments on Friday about him
calling you first before going and having meetings with
world leaders and your speech –
A: You tell the press
gallery back home that I’m in Hawai’i now dealing with our
offshore issues, and when I get back home, I’ll deal with
their domestic issues. Put it that way… and tell your
producers that, as well, from me personally.
Q: Are
you on the same page on the tariffs?
A:
what I say: that we deal with foreign matters when we’re
offshore, and we deal with domestic matters when we’re back
home, all in that order. And I’ll be pleased to see them
when I get
home.
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