Let’s get the sporting rivalry, out of the way first – when Australia’s High Commissioner speaks in Masterton next week, she is unlikely to be focussing on the recent Bledisloe Cup rugby matches! But she will point out that Australia and New Zealand have a long-standing partnership, which is deeper and wider than simply sports and the Anzac tradition.  

Her Excellency Harinder Sardu is the High Commissioner and she describes our two nations’ relationship as ‘A partnership in Action’  - a theme she will enlarge on during next week’s speech to the Wairarapa Branch of the NZ Institute of International Affairs on 17 October.

The High Commissioner has been in her current post since March 2022.  Prior to coming to Wellington she was the Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Secretary for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.

As a senior career officer with DFAT she has previously served as Australia’s High Commissioner to India, and as a senior Embassy staffer in Moscow and Damascus.

In Canberra, she has also served in the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, the Office of National Assessments and in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.  Of note, as well as representing Australia here in New Zealand, she is also Australia’s representative to the Tokelau Islands and Pitcairn Island. 

Ms Sidhu was educated at the University of Sydney and earned a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Economics.

She will bring this extensive experience to her perspective of the Australia and New Zealand relationship.

It is likely that she will comment on the origins of the relationship, which go back to our parallel colonial experience. But in the current period, both nations face a series of urgent global challenges, of which the Gaza conflict – now rapidly expanding to include Israel’s war with Hezbollah in the Lebanon – and the war in Ukraine, are the most alarming examples.

So there are immediate defence implications for both nations, while there are simultaneous challenges in our shared area of interest in the South Pacific. And looming over all is the future of China – a powerful nation with expanding influence, but is also a potential threat to the current global system.

While Australia and New Zealand are consistent rivals in the sporting arena, both nations have to remain viable trading nations, reliable defence partners, yet also help to tackle the inevitable climate crisis.

Thus there is much ground for the Australian High Commissioner to cover in her talk, and it is bound to be of wide interest.

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