CANBERRA, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government has congratulated Jacinda Ardern on being elected Prime Minister (PM) of New Zealand despite previously saying they could not trust her party.
Ardern, 37, was announced as the new PM of New Zealand on Thursday evening 26 days after the country cast its votes.
Winston Peters, leader of the minor New Zealand First party, announced that he would support Ardern's Labour Party, allowing the two to form a coalition government.
The shock result came two months after Julie Bishop, Australia's Foreign Minister, said it would be "very difficult to build trust" with a NZ Labour government.
Bishop's comments came after it was alleged that a member of NZ Labour had worked with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to prove that Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce was a citizen of New Zealand and thus ineligible to serve in Australian parliament.
On Friday, Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull took steps to go back on Bishop's comments, saying that the Australia-New Zealand alliance was as strong as ever.
"I spoke to Jacinda Ardern last night and congratulated her," Turnbull said on Australian radio on Friday.
"I've got no doubt we will work together effectively and confidentially and constructively as Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers have done from different political persuasions for generations.
"I do expect to trust them. Prime Ministers come and go, political parties come and go but the friendship between Australia and New Zealand endures."
At a brief press conference on Thursday night, Bishop said that the matter of whether she could trust NZ Labour had been dealt with before the election result was finalized.
"The fact is Ardern gave an explanation a couple of months ago about the behaviour of a New Zealand member of the Labour party and she said at the time that his conduct was wrong, it was unacceptable, it should never have happened, and that he shouldn't have become involved," Bishop said.
"And I accepted her explanation and I agree with her absolutely."
