Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Prime Minister Chris Luxon's trip to China and Europe

The Prime Minister says his upcoming trip to China is about more than bolstering trade links.

Chris Luxon will be meeting with President Xi Jinping and other key members of the Chinese Government while in Beijing next week. 

After meetings wrap up in Shanghai, Luxon will be heading to the NATO summit in Europe.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan explained why Luxon's carrying out these trips - and what they could mean for New Zealand.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm joined by New Zealand here political editor Thomas Coglin.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Good morning, Thomas Ganjeska.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Okay, so the Prime Minister, he's after China and Europe.
This is his first trip to China.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
It is? It is?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
So?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, midway through the term. It's about when when the
Prime Minister would want to head off to China. He's
leaving first thing Tuesday, Tuesday morning, Shang High. First in Beijing,
he's got a meeting with President hijin Thing, which is
obviously the highlight of that tour. Then after Beijing, he's
off to Europe, after Brussels where he'll meet the heads

(00:46):
of the European Union and then to the Hague where
there is the NATO Summit of the NATO Alliance. The
leaders from those NATO countries will be there. So that's
the likes of Emmanuel Macron, Kiastada from France and the UK,
but also Donald Trump, US President Donald Trump. So that'll
be his first meeting with with Donald Trump. He had

(01:06):
excuesion thing once before.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Okay, what do we expect getting out of these trips.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
The big one on in China is obviously an economics
economic trip, but China remains a very important trading partner
for New Zealand. Tourism with China has not covered tourism arrivals.
We're at about sixty percent of pre COVID levels and
international education is very important from China, so we want
to make that recover too. The challenge is that the

(01:35):
Chinese side has offered New Zealand is visa free travels
to China. If you're a tourist, you can just go
there without a proper long term visa. New Zealand is
probably unwilling to offer the same to reciprocate that, simply
because there is a high risk that visa free travel
with China would mean would mean a high number of

(01:56):
asylum seekers coming to New Zealand's political refugees, which which
New Zealand is is less keen on, and obviously the
government has to maintain that's delicate balance of the security
issues with China as well.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Thomas wondering, if you can explain something to me, why
did we have to wait months and months and months
for the Reserve Bank to come out and tell us
that Adrian or resigned for a very kind of standard
reason that a lot of bosses leave a job. I
don't quite understand where there was the oiah should take

(02:34):
twenty days, took months the informations released. It's hardly shocking.
It's actually pretty normal, and you're kind of going, what
were they trying to hide here? Why did this take
so long? Actually, it's the kind of reason that I
thought would have actually been explained at the time when
he resigned.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yes, well, I would love to be able to explain
it to you, but someone would have to explain it
to me first. I don't think anyone knows why. These
defects that you've outlined are absolutely the facts of this matter,
and no one can explain why it took them so
long to come out with it. Yes, they resigned at
the time over a funding dispute with the government that

(03:12):
happens every five years. They negotiated something. He wanted more money,
the government wasn't going to give it to him. The
Reserve Bank Board basically sided with the government, and so
he quit, which is a totally understandable and fair thing
to do. You know, the new people would do the
same in that situation, and then for whatever reason, the
Reserve Bank didn't actually come out and give that very
obvious and saying a normal reason at the time. Instead

(03:36):
had a number of unusual statements at the time, and
it took months and months for these Efficient Information Act
requests to reveal not very many documents, frankly, which shed
more light on the case. No one, I mean even
the Bank has mattered that they took too long to
release this information. They should have released them much earlier
and been more upfront with the facts of the matter

(03:58):
on the day.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Okay, Glenn, the only one that finds it all a
bit bizarre. Thomas, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
For more from the Sunday session with Franchessa Rodken, Listen
live to News Talks at B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.