1Hipkins juggles competing ideologies over PNG-US deal 'PNG is a really really important relationship, but also development needs are really very substantial' - Robert Ayson Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' whistlestop trip to Papua New Guinea sends a clear message: superpowers may come and go, but New Zealand is here to stay. The US and PNG signing a security deal is the latest iteration of increasing competition in the region, but strategic studies expert Robert Ayson says New Zealand has ways of staying close to its Pacific neighbours - despite the US-China struggle for influence. Hipkins touches down in Papua New Guinea's capital Port Moresby on a muggy Sunday evening, welcomed by a sprawling red carpet, dozens of armed troops and the New Zealand national anthem. He is there in part to meet for the first time with Pacific and international counterparts - including Cook Islands PM Mark Brown, PNG's James Marape, and India's Narendra Modi - but the centrepiece of the summit was the signing of a defence pact between PNG and the United States. His meeting with Marape over breakfast just a few hours before the signing left Hipkins with "greater clarity" about what PNG wants out of the deal. He told reporters it was not just about security but included things like electrification: "I would see this more of an extension of an existing relationship," Hipkins said. But it goes well beyond a deeper bilateral relationship, giving American forces uninhibited access to PNG's territorial land, waters and airspace in exchange for roughly $45 million dollars' worth of development programmes. Ayson says it's a significant step for US access in the region. "The US does get greater access to PNG facilities, and so it gets that operational advantage and that also means, for example, it has another place to disperse its forces when it gets concerned about the range of China's missiles - should it come to that." PNG is just 5km north of Australian territory, and Ayson says it's strategically the most important country in the South Pacific, particularly in terms of the US-China contest for influence. The third-largest island nation in the world and home to more than nine million people, it also has drastic development needs. One of Hipkins' visits is to Gordons Market, a bustling facility for locals to buy and sell fruit and vegetables built with $15m from the New Zealand government. One man says unemployment and job shortages are top of mind for most locals, who get by selling at markets like this. "I don't think most of the people feel like security threat. Like, most of the people they're uneducated, they don't know the influence of the developed countries, their influence towards us, therefore they just do the day-to-day living." Port Moresby-based sailor Aukustine Wariki - whose work has taken him to New Zealand - says the market suits the needs of the city and wider central province, but more is needed. "Things are going up in the cities, but the development has to go to the rural areas where the people live, which will stop them coming, flocking to town and [means they can] do their activities like farming and whatever - things that can really sustain their lives." "I mean, the Chinese, they do a lot of business in Papua New Guinea - but our safety has to be guaranteed." China has been putting investment into the Pacific for decades, but recently ramped that up. A security pact between Beijing and PNG's close neighbour Solomon Islands raised concern from neighbouring countries, and put competing superpowers on notice. Then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern described it as "gravely concerning" at the time - a stance Ayson says is hard to square with Hipkins' on the US-PNG deal. He says New Zealand is straddling two competing impulses. One is anti-militarisation. "That means not wanting to see a greater military buildup, whether that's through the supply of arms, or whether that's through the positioning of forces or whether that's through building up things that might become military bases. "That's also connected to this view ... as [Foreign Minister] Nanaia Mahuta has suggested - that New Zealand takes a country-agnostic view to militarisation - in other words, it doesn't matter who is doing it, it's not welcome." The other side is a more hawkish support for Western power in the South Pacific, "which means more of the US presence is welcome, it means a strong Australian role, it means welcoming others who are often regarded as like-minded partners - so Japan, the UK, and of course, there's the French role. "In that context, China's growing role is a particular concern, it's a challenge to that Western maritime predominance." In an interview with Morning Report host Ingrid Hipkiss this week, Hipkins described the US role in the Pacific as long-standing, "and they are more predictable - we understand what their motivations there are, they are quite transparent with us about that, and so we do know what we're dealing with there". Ayson says it means New Zealand trusts the US - on security, at least - but not China. "When you say, 'you're not being transparent enough, you're not predictable enough', that's kind of what that means -because even if China had ... given months and months of advance notice about what it was planning to do with Solomons, Australians would still have been absolutely alarmed about it, there would have been alarm in Washington, and I don't think Wellington would have been happy with it either." He says strategic competition means more big players in the region and decreases New Zealand's ability to shape events but one of New Zealand's few advantages in the situation is the ability to offer something different. "There is something to be said for New Zealand to continue focusing on those non-security aspects of economic and other assistance to its Pacific Island neighbors and to countries that are a bit further away than just being neighbors as well," he says. "Where analysts automatically assume that everything is about the great power contest, continuing on with aspects of ... economic assistance, development assistance, educational assistance - that makes an awful lot of sense."

2Mānuka: The buzz that a word makes For years, New Zealand honey producers have been fighting for better protection of the word 'mānuka'. But this week, they suffered another setback, with the Intellectual Property Office rejecting its trademark bid. The Australians are calling it a common sense outcome, New Zealanders say it's a huge blow in the battle to protect taonga species - and all native flora and fauna are now at risk. Kiwi honey producers have lost the latest round in the fight over mānuka honey, after a bid to trademark it was rejected by the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand this week. The office called it "a trans-Tasman tussle of extraordinary proportions", and said in its ruling that it was "one of the most complex and long-running proceedings" it has handled. Australian honey producers say it's time for "our friends in New Zealand to put down their guns" and work together to supply a global market, expected to be worth more than $1 billion in a few years. New Zealand producers have been trying to trademark the term since 2015 and the latest decision follows similar rulings in the UK and EU not to grant trademark status. But the local industry says the fight isn't over. "Not at all," says Richard Rennie, a Farmers Weekly journalist. "I think it's probably hardened the resolve of the industry to push on - in some way, shape, or form - to distinguish New Zealand mānuka honey." Māori patent lawyer Lynell Tuffery Huria, who has been involved in the case, was gutted by the decision. She says it highlights a gap in intellectual property legislation that has long been known about. "What it does confirm is that the intellectual property system and regime is not designed to protect our taonga. That is well known, both here in New Zealand and around the world," Huria says. In her lengthy ruling, the assistant commissioner for trademarks, Natasha Alley, said while tikanga [customary] principals were relevant, they did not meet the requirements of distinctiveness under Trade Marks Act. Rennie explains that Alley believed the phrase, mānuka honey, was not distinct enough under the law to be quarantined or to be encircled for protection. She noted the applicants had not done enough to distinguish the differences between the New Zealand offering and offerings elsewhere, particularly Australia. But Alley also expressed "considerable sympathy" for New Zealand producers, because of mānuka honey's cultural significance. "She acknowledged the law that she had to work under really lacks this ability to acknowledge the taonga value of something like mānuka," says Rennie. The assistant commissioner said the term was not widely used in Australia until after New Zealand's mānuka honey industry took off - well after the antibacterial properties were discovered in New Zealand in the 1980s. Rennie says New Zealand producers didn't move quickly enough to protect it. "Should we not have moved earlier and sooner to protect that, once we knew about it, and lock it down earlier, a little bit like maybe we should have done with green kiwifruit with the Chileans back in the 70s and 80s?" Huria says the decision raises the need for urgency in creating a regime that helps "protect our taonga species". She tells The Detail that a tikanga-based framework was proposed by the original claimants from Wai262, a Waitangi Tribunal claim about the recognition of rights around traditional Māori knowledge and customs. The claimants' descendants are looking at setting up a taonga framework; there have also been calls for a special commission for mātauranga Māori, or Māori knowledge; and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples refers to the protection of intellectual property. "These regimes are known, they have been talked about for many years and we need them otherwise our taonga are going to be appropriated, and we are going to continue to have other taonga species appropriated by interests internationally," says Huria. "All our native flora and fauna are at risk because of this decision."