More Aussie Interference?

Like a lot of others, I criticised Australian Prime Minister John Howard for his idiotic attempt to influence the American presidential election by attacking Senator Barack Obama (those posts are here and here). Now, it looks as if his government is attempting to interfere in New Zealand’s internal politics.

The conservative National Party held their annual conference this past weekend, and special guest speaker was Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. NZ Herald political writer Audrey Young summed it up best in her newspaper blog when she wrote:

I don't care how it is justified in theory, in practice it feels wrong that Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, is in New Zealand lending his weight to the National Party bid to get rid of the New Zealand Government.

And there is no other way to interpret his acceptance of an invitation to speak at the National Party conference. An Australian Transport minister fine. A Local Government fine. A doesn't-matter finance minister. But Foreign Affairs Minister or Prime Minister, the people in charge of the relationship, no.

The problem is Downer’s high status as arguably one of the two most important people in Howard’s government—the other being Howard himself—and the fact that the two of them manage Australia's relationship with New Zealand. As Young also notes, it would be just as wrong for NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark to address the Australian Labor Party, and for the same reason.

When two countries are as close and intertwined as are New Zealand and Australia, it’s important to avoid even the appearance of interference in each other’s domestic affairs. Hopefully the Howard government will remember that and won’t cross the line again over the coming year, should they win re-election, as New Zealand draws closer to its own election.