Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia and New Zealand have agreed to disagree over the fraught issue of criminal deportations of NZ citizens after sitting down with Christopher Luxon for high level talks today in Canberra.
Mr Luxon had said he would raise concerns over deportations "pretty directly" with Mr Albanese after the federal government dumped a ministerial direction that was meant to reduce the number of New Zealand citizens with little or no connection to their country of birth being sent across the ditch.
Mr Albanese acknowledged New Zealand's anxieties after being pressed on the issue during a press conference after the meeting.
"What we have is an understanding that while we have common purpose, we do not have uniform positions," he said.
"But we respect each other's position."
Mr Albanese said the government would still take a "common-sense" approach, and wouldn't ignore the weight of connections to Australia when weighing up deportations — but also stressed that community safety was now the number one issue for Australian officials.
"Australia's job is to look after our national interest. We say the safety of Australians is the number one consideration in the ministerial direction," he said.
"But it also continues to apply common sense. A common sense approach. It is all we try to bring to this and that is understood."
Mr Luxon only briefly mentioned the disagreement in his opening remarks, saying that he and Mr Albanese agreed to stay in touch on the issue.
The issue has long been a source of tension between the two countries, with New Zealand complaining that people deported from Australia have swollen the ranks of criminal gangs in their country.
Deepening defence ties
Mr Albanese and Mr Luxon also discussed a host of other issues during their talks, including trade, climate change cooperation, regional security and the Pacific.
Mr Luxon's government has signalled it wants to deepen defence cooperation with the United States and Australia, and is open to potentially joining Pillar 2 of the AUKUS partnership.
A joint statement issued by both countries after the talks said the leaders "further committed to increasing our combined operational tempo and presence together in the Indo-Pacific" so both sovereign defence forces could "come together as an 'Anzac' force to respond to regional and global challenges".
One senior officer from both Australia and New Zealand will also be embedded in top defence positions across the ditch in order to boost "interoperability" between the forces.
New Zealand's Defence Force has been hit with maintenance and sustainment woes, and has been forced to cut civilian personnel numbers due to a budget black hole.
But Mr Luxon said New Zealand could still be a "force multiplier" for Australia — and said his government was willing to invest in new defence platforms under a sweeping review of his country's defence force.
"That work we hope to have completed towards the end of the year, maybe early next year … our intention is to say we want to be fully interoperable with Australia's defence forces," he said.
"We want to be a force multiplier for Australia and by making sure that we can do things like joint procurement, we have alignment on what we can bring."
Mr Albanese told journalists that both countries could achieve "enormous efficiencies" by boosting interoperability and procurement.
The two leaders also confirmed that if either country was hit with a major cyber attack it could constitute an "armed attack" under the ANZUS treaty — which would oblige both countries to consult together to determine the best response to the threat.
