Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Minister Mark Patterson's planned visit to India

The Associate Agriculture Minister's off to India to talk up Kiwi wool this week.

Mark Patterson will meet the Indian Textiles Minister and visit the Bharat Tex conference - the country's largest textile expo.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan says NZ First has fired back at this plan and labelled the visit a 'taxpayer funded trip'.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right to talk about politics today because Barry's on
holiday with Heather, We've got Thomas Cogg on New Zealand
herold's political editor, Thomas, Hello.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
So we're off to India to promote trade and there's
a New Zealand First Minister and Associate Minister part of that,
and an act MP is poking fun at him.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yes, yes, this is Mark Patterson. Mark Patterson's been a
big advocate for Wall in the current Parliament. He was
one of the driving forces, you might remember a couple
of years ago behind getting the kaying Aura houses using
woolen carpets rather than synthetic carpets. He's a big he's
a big believer in woll as Mark Patterson. But obviously

(00:37):
going off to India to champion wool has an interesting
ring to it when you're in New Zealand First MP
as well, because obviously New Zealand First is a varia
against the India New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. You won't
find reference to the agreement in the press release that
Mark Patterson has put out describing his trip, and the
ex Party, which is obviously very supportive or mostly supportive

(00:58):
of the India FDA leapt on this today and and
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour with his act party head on,
made some remarks about that in his post coven at
press conference a little while ago.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah. In principle though New Zealand first is for the
f t A. It's just that they don't like the
immigration aspects to it and they don't like the possible
voluntary commitment of New Zealand investment.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
UH would know that they are they are against the
f t A.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, yeah, okay, So fun and games, speaking of which
narendrum Moudi g actually came to. He's heeting the right
Honorable Prime Minister of India. And that was quite a show,
wasn't it. Including a show at Spark Arena.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yes, incredible, the incredible thing over the weekend, incredible scenes.
Narendrum Modi does this when he travels. He's a he's
a big, a big believer in kind of activating the
Indian diaspora when he travels. You've seen similar scenes in Australia.
He had a massive rarely their last last year and
even bigger than the one in Auckland. Probably a big
one for the government. I'd say, obviously, when you compare

(02:05):
the India Free Trade Agreement to our other trade agreements,
it's definitely not as good a trade agreement as any
of the other ones are. The access is much poorer.
But a lot of the advocates are saying, well, look,
you know, India hasn't really given good access to anyone.
They don't give good access to anyone. They don't really
like free trade to any deal is better than no deal.
And I suppose you saw a bit of that over
the weekend. You just saw the sort of strength and

(02:27):
might of India as an emerging power, and the government
is very very clear that it wants to get a
slice of that trade pie.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
But there's a few people on the right, and I
know Peter Williams wrote about this and Substack as well,
who suggested that we bent over backwards. I mean, lax
and met Madi at the airport, which is actually making
a bit of a protocol. At the Spark Arena thing,
Moody and Christopher Laxa were holding hands and of course
do we ever let the British play minister have a
rally at home? Because the point there is we want

(02:59):
immigrants to come here in adopt New Zealanders their home.
And yet the whole message at that spark Arena thing
was you're still Indians, you can come back.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, there is. I mean we don't. We don't really
get many large foreign visits to New Zealand anyway, because
obviously we're rather small country. Shujan Pin came more than
a decade ago. That was the last really big one.
You do get some Pacific Island leaders, but but yes,

(03:28):
you don't. You don't always get big meetings with the diaspora.
It's certainly not rallies. Some Pacific Island leaders meet with
members of the diaspora. But but but yes you don't.
You don't get anything like that. That is quite unusual.
Anthony Albanesi went to one of these rallies when they
were held in Australia, and it was controversial over there
because of obviously Nearendromodes sort of politics. It's quite a

(03:53):
muscular interpretation of of of of his his flavor of politics.
Hindu nationalism is a big thing. It has been criticized
for crowding out some of the minority religions, the minority
ethnicities that are that there are in India, and so
Christopher lux and tying himself to that and being comfortable
with that kind of politics. It's controversial with with people

(04:16):
who are from India who are not adherence to the
Hindu faith or who are not members of of of
that majority ethnic majority. So yes, there is a there
is a controversy there with with Christopher Luxon appearing alongside
him anyway.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Okay, so currently Christopher leux is now on on winter
holiday and we've got David Seymour as our deputy prime
minister being the prime ministers. So that's why he did
the media today. He's done a post cab at three
thirty and he's talked about stuff and he's announced a
plan to attract international supermarket investors.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, yes, so he is. He is trying to streamline
investment approve foreign investment approvals. It's part of the it's
the it's part of the governments. You know, they've been
trying to attract supermarket since I took office, exually since
the last government left office. The last government was trying

(05:06):
to do it too. So it's the latest latest steps
and that very good.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Thomas Coggan, I thank you so much. Thomas Cogan, New
Zealand Herald's political editor. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio