Foreign Affairs Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins will meet their trans-Tasman counterparts Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles this week.
Peters and Collins will travel to Melbourne today.
The Israel-Gaza conflict, the AUKUS pact agreement, and a closer alignment of foreign and defence policy are among the many topics that will likely be on the table.
Peters and Collins are expected to be welcomed to Commonwealth Parliament House in Melbourne tomorrow morning.
They will then break out into their two-on-two meeting with Australian counterparts Wong and Marles.
It will be the first time both the New Zealand and Australian ministers have met in this format, and the first time Peters will meet Marles face-to-face.
Peters said it was a chance to closely align with one of New Zealand's strongest allies.
"The meeting is an important opportunity to discuss our shared commitment to our alliance and identify avenues through which to deepen our cooperation," he said.
Collins said it was also an opportunity to strengthen ties and work with each other on some of the biggest global issues.
"Australia is our only formal ally and it is in our mutual interest to work together to support a stable and secure region. We are stronger and more effective together," Collins said.
On the agenda, ministers said they would be speaking about the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts, as well as the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, which are expected to dominate much of the conversation.
It is expected both Peters and Collins will also hold separate bilateral discussions before returning to New Zealand tomorrow.
Penny Wong in Middle East
Wong visited the Middle East last week, speaking both in Israel and the occupied West Bank. Wong renewed a call for a "pathway to a Palestinian state" and stressed "the importance of a humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza.
Doubling down, she urged longer-term goals of "peace, security and dignity".
"We do have to deal with the pathway to a Palestinian state as part of that," she said.
In Ramallah, she also met the Palestine Authority's Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who both called on Australia to recognise a Palestinian state.
In response Wong stated the Australian government's position that Israeli settlements were "contrary to international law" and "an impediment to peace".
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