Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent on Luxon signing a new fuel deal with Singapore

A first of its kind agreement to secure New Zealand fuel.

Prime Minister Chris Luxon and other ministers are in Singapore, for the signing of a fuel and food security Memorandum of Understanding.

Singapore will supply us fuel in times of crisis - and New Zealand's will supply food - in a mutually beneficial deal.

Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper explained the significance of this deal. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry Soper, Senior political correspondence with US Allo Barry.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Not another problem with the fairies.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
I know, Lool's goodness, I know it really is like this, Okay,
talk to me. So we've got I thought we had
only the Prime minister over there, but Nichola Willis has
gone as well as she goes.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
And told McLay because they signed off this agreement this afternoon.
The agreement's been in place, of course, but there was
quite a nice picture of Christopher Luxon and his wife
and Lawrence Wong, the Singaporean Prime Minister and his wife,
having dinner together last night. And I think one thing
that Luxon is good at, and I've seen him perform

(00:35):
in this way. He's very good at sitting around at
dinner table having a yarn. And you know, they obviously
got on pretty well. But this agreement's a really interesting
one because it's more like a closer economic relationship with Singapore,
very much in the same vein as the cer we've
got with Australia. So you know, there's tit for tat.

(00:58):
They give us fine fuel, we give them food. If
there's issues on either side. So it's interesting. You know,
I went up the first signing of the Singapore Free
Trade Agreement that was with Helen Clark in two thousand,
so one has been in place for a long time.
So it was the first. Interestingly, the first bilateral FTA

(01:24):
for Singapore in the second for New Zealand. So the
relationship with this nation goes back a long time. It's
a nation that has a population roughly the same size
as New Zealand, but obviously is more influential in the world,
and I think, you know it should be garnered. The
relationship that we do have with this very much a

(01:47):
powerhouse in that part of the world.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Right, what do you make of acts immigration policy?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, I see Nicholas Tamford. I didn't go into why
she thought that it hadn't been thought through, but you know,
of course it was made by David Seymour yesterday when
he was the acting Prime Minister in the absence of
Christopher Luxen. But I mean there are issues in it
that I personally like. Serious offenders can be deported no

(02:16):
matter how long they've been in New Zealand. So I
think that's one good area. Skilled categories will expire every
year that would require employers to show up to date
evidence for demand in that particular category to stay open.
I think again that's not a bad thing. A five

(02:39):
year welfare stand down. And I heard questions being asked
about what can migrants get from the welfare pocket. Well,
apparently they have access to job seeker support and accommodation
supplements in their first five years. And the other thing
is literally on the doll exactly. The other thing I

(03:00):
felt rather strange was the six dollars. Yeah, I like
a taxation on migrants for infrastructure. I mean, a very
unusual course of action to take. But nevertheless, the English
requirement I like because you know, having dealt with a
number of people on the phone on a number of

(03:20):
issues over the recent years, I find it very difficult
to get your point of view across.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
I mean, as the Mutton bird said, Queen's English was
good enough for Jesus Christ, good enough for the migrants.
I've been no, I'll talk about that late. I've been
thinking I think it's the silliest thing to try and
get people to have English languages standards. But I'll come
back to that. Due to Collins, what do you think
is it because she's a strong woman.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Look, I think I see prime Minister's gendleerst Basically, I mean,
I like the idea of a woman prime minister because
I've been feeling much dominated by women in my career.
I'm not looking at anyone particular. See that was a joke.
I think that one fell flat, but.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Nonetheless because no one gets it.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Oh okay, fine, oh okay, you did to do that
a bit too. But anyway, Judith Collins, look, she was
a strong woman, but she's followed on from Helen Clark, who,
like you said earlier, has often been said softest part
of her was her teeth. I think a good leader

(04:27):
is a good leader regardless of what gender she is.
So you know, she led after a multuous time in
the National Party leadership. She rolled Simon Bridges or achieved
his departure with Todd Muller, who lasted what.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
She wasn't involved in that. She came after Todd, she did, but.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
She was involved in the background.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
I think with all that, I don't know if that's true,
but anyway, we'll lead that as a point of contention.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
She's made it clear over many years that she would
like to be the leader, and she stood against Bill
English and Simon Bridges in twenty eighteen. So this woman
was driven. She got the leadership, but look it was
a bit of an abomination and that election she could
never win against Jasinda durn because it was simply a

(05:19):
COVID election. In labor, unbridled power had the next three
years to put us even further down the gurgler.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Thank you, Barry, appreciate it. Barry so for Senior political correspondent.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
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