Will Hipkins be the fly in the ointment?

Newshub reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will head to Australia this weekend to meet with Malcolm Turnbull.

The Prime Minister said she will not be meeting with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

Asked whether she expected the dual citizenship controversy to be raised, and whether she would apologise on behalf of Labour’s Chris Hipkins, she said: “We were not responsible for that and therefore there is nothing to apologise for.”

Ms Bishop previously threatened that she would find it “very difficult to build trust with Labour” if the party formed a Government, after Mr Hipkins asked questions in the New Zealand Parliament about dual citizenship. 

She’s not responsible for what Chris Hipkins did?

One of the big trans-tasman issues is Australia’s decision to triple tertiary fees for NZers studying there. Normally the key Minister to negotiate with Australia on this issue would be our Tertiary Education Minister, Chris Hipkins.

But Hipkins is toxic to the Australian Government, so somehow NZ will have to negotiate this issue without having our Minister involved in the negotiations.