NEW Zealand’s new prime minister Jacinda Ardern won’t be apologising to Malcolm Turnbull for her party’s role in the probe into Barnaby Joyce’s citizenship status when she makes her first official visit to Australia on Sunday.

Ms Ardern told local media “We were not responsible for that” when asked today about whether she would be apologising for New Zealand Labour’s role in the probe, which culminated last week in the High Court ruling the former Deputy Prime Minister was ineligible to sit in Parliament.

Malcolm Turnbull will meet the new NZ Prime Minister for about three hours on Sunday for a one-on-one meeting in Sydney, official bilateral talks and brunch at Kirribilli House.

It will be a whirlwind trip with Ms Ardern flying back to New Zealand on Sunday night.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop will not be present for the meeting.

Minister Bishop and Ms Ardern had clashed in a trans-Tasman disagreement in August the day after Mr Joyce’s bombshell announcement that he might be a New Zealand citizen.

Ms Bishop had said she would “find it very difficult to build trust” with the NZ Labour Party after it was revealed a phone call from Labor frontbencher Penny Wong’s staffer to a member of the NZ party had sparked the probe into Mr Joyce’s citizenship status.

A spokeswoman for Ms Bishop confirmed today she would be in Perth on Sunday meeting with Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan.

She will also be giving the keynote address at the Asia Pacific Regional Conference the same day.

“Ms Bishop has already spoken to her New Zealand counterpart Winston Peters and they plan to meet as soon as possible,” the spokeswoman said.

Ms Ardern told New Zealand media today she was open to meeting Ms Bishop “when able”.

Ms Ardern’s rapid visit has prompted speculation over the state of the relationship between the two countries, however, it is not unusual for Australian and New Zealand leaders to meet in the aftermath of an election.

Just three months after Helen Clark was elected Prime Minister of New Zealand in December 1999, she paid a visit to Australia, and in 2008, John Key met with then-Australian PM Kevin Rudd two days after he was sworn in to office when both attended the APEC chief executives’ meeting in Peru.

Most recently, Malcolm Turnbull headed to Queenstown to meet with Bill English in February of this year — two months after Mr English became New Zealand’s prime minister.

At the meeting this morning, Mr Turnbull put any concerns to rest, saying: “Australia and New Zealand are not just mates, we are family.”

“I look forward to congratulating Prime Minister Ardern on her recent election and discussing how we can further strengthen the already close friendship between our nations,” Mr Turnbull said in a statement today.

“Our relationship is built on a solid foundation of economic, security, community and historical ties,” he said.

It’s expected the future of the trans-Pacific Partnership will be discussed, along with the government’s move to charge New Zealand nationals full fees when they study at an Australian university.

Mr Turnbull said key topics for the talks would be trade and jobs growth, an upcoming APEC Leaders’ meeting in Vietnam, the East Asia Summit in The Philippines and regional relations with the South Pacific.

“Our discussions will also cover our security and defence partnership, which dates back over a century,” Mr Turnbull said.