Kiwiblog

Stuff reports:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has warned that planned Foreign Affairs job losses and the closure of overseas posts will cost more in the long run than they save.

A State Services Commission report last year said the ministry was looking at slashing 200 jobs out of almost 1000.

An announcement on the details is expected soon.

Peters, a former minister of foreign affairs who negotiated a big increase in funding for the portfolio, said a “slash and burn exercise” would seriously affect this country’s overseas trade.

He said the move was a “serious, retrograde step” at a time New Zealand was desperately trying to increase its export trade.

Phil Goff has also joined in the bleating, arguing that more bureaucrats in MFAT will increase exports. If only, it was so simple.

As it happens exports have been growing quite nicely. In the last three years, they have increased 15.1% to $46.1b. That’s pretty good considering the wobbly global economy. Why have they increased?

Well exports to China have increased 169.5% to $5.6b. The dollar increase of $3.5b makes up 59% of the overall increase in exports.

It was three years ago we signed a Free Trade Agreement with China. An agreement that Peters as Foreign Minister not only refused to vote for, but actively campaigned against with a newspaper ad campaign urging people to sign up in opposition to the FTA.

So Peters’ record is having opposed the China FTA which saw exports to China increase 170%, and instead his solution is more bureaucrats in MFAT.  I doubt I have seen a more moronic economic prescription in recent times.

Derek Cheng reports:

A Labour-led Government would look into having weekly study-free afternoons in every secondary school for pupils to play sports.

Its sport and recreation policy, to be released today, includes broad initiatives such as fighting obesity, encouraging physical activity and maintaining back-country huts and tracks.

It has a focus on participation in school sport, including investigating “reintroducing midweek early finishing nationwide to facilitate midweek sport”.

Rather than trying to have the food police in school tuck-shops, an emphasis on more exercise and sport is a much better approach.

It’s a pity Labour were not a bit bolder and made it a policy, rather than merely investigate it. But still better than nothing.

The policy document also cites back-country huts and tracks as a significant asset that draws tourists.

“The existing network of back-country huts and tracks is vital as well and should remain. A bivvy in the right place, for example, can save lives,” the document says.

“Labour will promote development of new outdoor recreational opportunities, for example, walking and cycling trails on former railways land.”

I’m a big fan of huts and tracks, so welcome Labour saying they are vital. However I’m not sure what this means in policy terms. Are they going to build more? If so, how many and at what cost?

So overall the policy gets a tick from me. Not so impressed with the overseas development policy though.

National shut down NZAID as an organisation and moved the aid programme back into MFAT, with the explicit aim of aligning the aid programme with foreign policy goals. This has undermined the credibility and legitimacy of the aid programme.

Labour will re-establish NZAID as New Zealand’s international development agency, committed to the elimination of poverty, implementing a high-impact development programme, transparent and accountable, and contributing to New Zealand’s broader foreign policy goals.

First of all it is idiocy to say that our aid programme should not be compatible with our foreign policy goals. Of course it should be.

The issue of whether NZAID should be a semi-autonomous agency or a division within MFAT has arguments on both sides. I wasn’t actually convinced that it should have been merged back into the MFAT. However as it has now been merged back in, the last thing you want to do is pull it back out again. This would be massively costly and disruptive. You can’t have its status changing every few years.

Basically Labour’s policy is to just reverse everything that McCully has done. It’s not future looking in any way at all – it is just trying to turn the clock back, without realising you can’t.

Charles Finny, a former MFAT staffer, writes at Stuff on changes to MFAT:

I met a former MFAT colleague a few days after Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully had delivered his speech on planned changes to the way the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry does its business.

I was reminded that many of the proposed changes were actually suggested in the 1989-90 period and about how the MFAT system had been able to muster so much opposition to the proposals that few were implemented. It is therefore with little surprise that I read editorials and op-eds from former diplomats questioning some of what is being proposed.

MFAT has managed to fight off change for many decades.

MFAT has been extremely resistant to change. It has taken longer to embrace new technologies and management systems than pretty much every other organ of government. It is hierarchical and it has never quite come to grips with the tension that exists between specialists and generalists within the organisation. And until Mr Allen took over as CEO, it has never valued experience gained outside the ministry. Those seeking to come back to the ministry after years away were told that they would have to enter at the level they were at when they departed.

MFAT seems to have this strange rule that you can’t be a senior manager there, unless you are also a diplomat.

I agree fully with Mr McCully that competition should be introduced at head of mission level. There are plenty of current and past public servants from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Treasury, the Economic Development Ministry, Customs and Defence with the skill-set and experience necessary to do a head-of- mission job. Martyn Dunne, who is about to go off to Canberra as high commissioner, is an example of this type of person. And from time to time politicians will be the right person for an assignment. Mike Moore is doing a great job in Washington DC right now, as is Jim McLay in New York.

Diplomats deal with both diplomats and politicians. Sometimes the best person for the job will be a senior former politician such as Jim McLay. What should cease is the practice of sending politicians such as Graeme Kelly to a senior overseas post.

I am on record calling for even more radical reforms of the head- of-mission appointment process than Mr McCully. I believe those nominated for these important roles should be forced to appear before the foreign affairs and defence select committee and be the subject of questioning on their knowledge and experience relevant to the proposed assignment.

That’s not a bad idea.

The Herald reports:

An embarrassing leak to Australian media of a high-level New Zealand diplomatic cable has jeopardised future discussions between the two countries, Labour leader Phil Goff says.

The Government is investigating how the report, which details the takeover of the Australian prime ministership by Julia Gillard, fell into the hands of the Australian newspaper, which published parts of it yesterday.

Yeah this is almost as bad as that leak, where notes of confidential discussions with US Senators was leaked – jeopardising MFAT being allowed to sit in on any future discussions.

Now who leaked those again? Oh, yes, a Mt P Goff.

Mr Goff, a former Foreign Minister, called it a serious breach of protocol that undermined the integrity and credibility of the foreign service.

“It’s extraordinary that a confidential diplomatic cable could have found its way into the hands of the news media, and that could be potentially damaging to the relationship between New Zealand and Australia.

“Any confidential briefing likely to be given to New Zealand diplomats in Canberra is now likely to be withheld.”

Maybe the diplomats thought they were following the lead of that other P Goff?

Incidentally I agree it is a bad thing that confidential memo got leaked.

I’ve blogged in the past on ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Readers will gear a lot more of this in the next month, because the next meeting of the ACTA negotiators is in Wellington in April.

There are two major issues around ACTA. The first is that the negotiations are secret, and this has even upset the EU Parliament:

Wary of the lack of openness surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), virtually representatives of the EU parliament have banded together, voting 663 to 13 in favour of passing a resolution that would require the EU Commission (who are the EU’s representative in ACTA negotiations), to share all information about ACTA talks, and to refuse to support any Internet disconnection penalty for online copyright infringement.

The resolution is very specific and blunt about the EU Parliament’s displeasure with the lack of transparency around EU ACTA negotiations, citing concerns over the “lack of a transparent process in the conduct of the ACTA negotiations”.

The second is the concern that ACTA may force countries that ratify it, to legislate for Internet disconnection for people accussed or found to have infringed copyright.

Now, all trade agreements are negotiated privately, but whether an agreement on copyright law should be seen as a trade agreement is a big issue – most IP agreements are not. Many countries would like to be more open about ACTA, but the rules of trade negotiations are that you need unanimous permission to agree to anything – including releasing information. So just one country, such as the US, can block the release of the draft text.

I’ve attended two meetings (in my role with InternetNZ) with officials from MFAT and MED, and have to say I am impressed with their willingness to engage, within the limits of what they can say. They have consistently said their position has been that ACTA should not require NZ to do anything beyond its current law (including the replacement S92A). However they can not tell us what has been proposed by other countries, and the concern is what pressure there may be to get an agreement in the final stages.

What the Government has done is asked for public submissions on “enforcement of intellectual property rights in the digital environment”. If you have concerns about ACTA, you should take a few minutes to make a submission and state what is and is not acceptable to you. Topics include:

• Liability of ISPs for third party infringement
• Safe Harbour provisions for ISPs and associated conditions
• Identifying Infringing Users
• TPMs (Technological Protection Measures)

Now despite the ACTA negotiations being secret, a draft text has been leaked. And, assuming it is accurate, it shows the New Zealand negotiators in a pretty favourable light – opposing some of the more undesirable aspects.

Nathan Torkington covers this in a blog post. His summary:

On the balance this bit isn’t too bad–New Zealand is a good voice for sanity in the negotiations.

I was pleased to see from the leaked draft, that the official position of the NZ negotiators, was very much in line with the informal indications they had given. It is ironic that we can only verify this, because someone leaked a draft.

Now as I said the next round of ACTA, and the round most likely to be discussing the Internet section, is in Wellington from 12 to 16 April. I am hoping the organisers will allow an opportunity for some sort of public forum or dialogue with negotiators, and this request has been made.

InternetNZ has organised a PublicACTA conference on Saturday 10 April, which will allow interested people to debate the issues, form positions, and report them to the main ACTA negotiations the following week.

And in a further announcement, the keynote speaker will be Professor Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa in Ontario. Michael is a real expert in this area, and a great advocate for balance in copyright laws.

I would recommend people attend, just for the chance to hear Michael. And if you wish to stay up to date with what is happening, I recommend this ACTA coalition site.

The Dom Post approves:

The appointment of New Zealand’s top postman John Allen as its top diplomat is an inspired move by State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie.

It signals that this Government wants to place greater emphasis on the trade side of the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry operations.

Prime Minister John Key knows that growth is the only way for New Zealand to succeed once the worldwide slump is behind us.

As tens of thousands of NZ jobs are lost, we are reminded how important economic growth is.

Mr Allen’s imminent shift from the state-owned enterprise NZ Post to head MFAT has some parallels with the National Party’s own election of John Key as its leader in late 2006. Neither man is encumbered by the ancient baggage borne by those around them, allowing each to take a fresh look at the challenges they face and at the solutions that might be offered.

In Mr Allen, according to one insider, the SSC has found a unique individual for a unique position, a man who instinctively understands that trade policy succeeds only when it and a country’s political leadership are aligned.

Foreign affairs in this country has mostly been the preserve of diplomats and cast-out politicians. The ministry has never been led by a businessman, or anyone who has not earned his spurs by patiently crafting elegant papers on arcane aspects of foreign policy, or poring over the entrails of who might succeed the Dear Leader in Pyongyang.

A bit harsh!

He has, instead, been a successful commercial operator, who straddles easily the white line between the public service and private sector sides of his SOEs operations, and is not without international experience.

He co-chairs the Australian New Zealand Leadership Forum and is accustomed to dealing with ministers, which will make accompanying the prime minister and foreign affairs minister on forays abroad easier. …

But his is a bold appointment, and his success or otherwise will reflect on Mr Rennie, Mr Key and ministers Murray McCully and Tim Groser, as well as on himself.

Reaction at MFAT is somewhat mixed I hear. Many of the younger staffers are really excited about a new broom, and see lots of exciting opportunities. A few of the more senior staff are nervous about the appointment, but not hostile.

NZ Post has just announced:

New Zealand Post Chairman Rt Hon Jim Bolger today announced that the Group’s Chief Executive John Allen will leave at the end of June to take up the appointment of Chief Executive and Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

His tenure at MFAT will be much watched!

Two good articles on MFAT and NZ Aid. Fran O’Sullivan has a look at MFAT and what the (yet to be announced) appointment of John Allen means. Fran says:

The commission’s panel was encouraged to look at the top MFat job in an “expansive way” and select a new chief executive who could (and this is the most important point) provide leadership for New Zealand – not just the Foreign Affairs Ministry – to help propel a much more aggressive approach offshore.

Fran says it is about getting less silos and better co-operations from not just MFAT, but also NZT&E, Immigration Service, Education NZ, and Tourism NZ.

Meanwhile in the Dom Post, Nick Venter looks at NZ Aid:

He starts with why NZ Aid was made semi-autonomous:

Eight years ago an independent review of New Zealand’s  aid programme raised major  concerns about the way aid  money was distributed.

The reviewers reported that the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry, which administered the aid programme, regarded aid as “an instrument of foreign policy”, that almost a quarter of the total aid budget of $250 million was spent on tertiary education scholarships – despite poor completion rates and the failure of many students to return home.

The ministry had used $500,000 of aid money to relocate the Samoan Department of Lands, Surveys and Environment so a new New Zealand high commission could be built, that the ministry used its development agency as a “dumping ground for non-performers” and that there was no “formal documented system of analysis or defined criteria used for determining the annual allocation process”.

McCully says:

“You don’t make changes like this if you don’t have to,” he said. “But in terms of the audit reports that have been brought down and some of the examples that I have looked at, over months now, I made up my own mind that I wasn’t going to carry the can for those things.”

Mr McCully has publicly questioned NZAid’s priorities, the amount of money it puts into “unproductive” regional bureaucracies, the size of its staff (281) and the proportion of the aid budget spent on internal overheads (about 8 per cent), but concern about accountability persuaded him to put it back under the umbrella of the ministry.

He says the agency, headed throughout its existence by former diplomat Peter Adams, wrongly assumed that being a semi-autonomous body entitled it to operate outside the normal state sector controls. “NZAid looked at the word autonomous and ignored the word semi.”

One of the consequences was that NZAid did not tell the ministry things it needed to know, “sometimes involving large amounts of money or serious matters of national interest”.

McCully also seems to think overheads were too high:

Mr McCully said he had also been concerned by NZAid’s response to questioning of its overheads. “I was annoyed to find that we were running overheads that were about 8 per cent of the total budget and that NZAid regarded themselves as being immune from any sort of scrutiny in that respect.

At a time when I was putting MFAT through the wringer, I was being told that NZAid were not open to that degree of scrutiny because we just gave them a bulk number and they decided how much of it was going to be overheads . . . . When I said, ‘Okay, presumably that will go down quite a lot when the budget goes up to $600 million,’ I was told, ‘No, it will go up to 9 per cent.’ I said, ‘How is that?’ They said, ‘That is just what we have decided.’ “

The story also focuses on what the goal should be:

He is also sharply critical of Mr McCully’s decision to abandon the poverty alleviation focus favoured by other Western governments as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“Economic development is an important contributor to poverty alleviation, but it’s a means to an end, not an end itself.

“The key to poverty alleviation is benefiting those most in need. Traditionally the elites benefit when money is pumped in with an economic development focus. You achieve poverty alleviation through investment in education, health, literacy and governance.”

Mr McCully, who has described poverty alleviation as a “rather nebulous concept”, says the success of the new focus will be measurable in, among other things, improved trade statistics.

“It is unacceptable that we should be exporting a billion dollars worth of goods to the Pacific and having empty ships coming back here. It shows that we are spending too much of our money on stuff that might help alleviate poverty this year but it does not do anything about next year and the year after.”

One thing is for sure – all eyes will be focused on NZ Aid for the next few years.

NZPA reports:

Wellington, May 6 NZPA – New Zealand Post chief executive John Allen will be the next head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, NZPA understands.

I like this new order of reporting senior appointments:

1. Tipped on Kiwiblog
2. Predicted on Transtasman
3. Reported on NZPA
4. Announced by the SSC

Transtasman are tipping (via e-mail) that NZ Post CEO John Allen is likely to be named Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Incidentally I tipped this back on the 8th of April.

If they are right, then this is a radical change for MFAT. Not only has an outsider never been made CEO before – they don’t have outsiders in any of their senior management team. Every Deputy Secretary(I believe) is from within MFAT.

Most Government Departments have senior managers who have come from other Departments or God forbid even the private sector. MFAT does not. What this means is the only senior managers there are those who have spent decades within MFAT. Hence why this is about Minister McCully wanting a change culture.

One News revealed tonight that Winston Peters aggressively pushed for Owen Glenn to be appointed Consul to Monaco, despite denying he did so. The Government has refused for eight months to release this information, but finally the Ombudsman forced it out of them.

The documents show Peters on multiple occassions asked for progress and was reported to be testy that MFAT were taking so long to do it. Watch the video for the full details. MFAT concluded:

A report prepared in November concluded that the position was marginal and if it did go ahead they recommended another candidate named Franco Repetto, saying he lived in Monaco full time while Glenn was there just three months a year.

Now it has been established that Winston Peters knew about the donation when it was made in 2005. It was also cleared with Mike Williams at the time, and Helen Clark knew about it either also at the time, or at the latest in February 2008.

Clark sat on this info for at least six months, claiming not to know if it was true. This is despite the fact she would have been aware that Peters had been aggressively pushing for Glenn to be appointed Consul.

Did Clark notify the Cabinet Secretary or the MFAT CEO about the (then alleged) donation from Glenn to Peters? Did she tell them that Owen Glenn had confirmed to her he made a donation?

Clark’s ethics are amazing. She is aghast at Gerry Brownlee having 1,000 shares in Contact Energy several years ago, yet she has no problem with her Foreign Affairs Minister receiving $100,000 donations from individuals and then aggressively pushing to give them a diplomatic appointment.

This is not an isolated case. Clark knows that the Vela Family have donated around $250,000 to NZ First and indeed $40,000 to Peters personally (paying off the Clarkson debt). And she knows that Peters forced her Government to agree to very generous funding of the racing industry, against advice of officials.

And what is her response to this? Totally unconcerned. She keeps paying Winston a Ministerial salary even though he won’t even front up to a debate on foreign policy. She says she’ll happily work with him after the election, so long as it increases her chances of desperately clinging to power.

The hypocrisy of her suggesting Peter Dunne should relinquish a Ministerial warrant for expressing a post-election coalition preference, while keeping Winston on despite multiple proven lies, false evidence and basically corrupt behaviour.

This is Helen Clark’s world. If you are willing to vote for her to remain Prime Minister, she will turn a blind eye to any amount of misdeeds or worse. Hence in her mind there is nothing wrong with calling for Peter Dunne to resign his warrant, but keeping Winston Peters on.

This reinforces for me why we need an Independent Commission against Corruption. She covered up over Taito Philip Field with an inquiry given no powers. She kept quiet for months about Winston, and the latest stuff with Shane Jones is being dealt with by way of a Departmental inquiry which by definition can not investigate the Ministers involved.

The NZ Herald says this week will see a focus on the PM’s knowledge of the Owen Glenn donation.

The more I think about it, the more appalling it is that she said or did nothing. Let us first dispose of her claims that she had no choice but to accept Peters’ word.

1. The convention of accepting the word of an MP, only applies in the House itself. There is no such convention in the wider political sphere.
2. More importantly, accepting someone’s word only applies up until there is evidence which contradicts that word. The direct testimony of Owen Glenn that he donated $100,000 to assist Winston Peters is evidence.
3. In previous cases where the evidence contradicts what the Minister says, Clark has asked to examine the evidence. She had her staff examine media tapes of Benson-Pope’s interviews to determine he had lied, and sacked him.
4. This was not a case where one had to accept the word of Glenn over Peters or vice versa. A donation is a provable fact and she could have gained absolute proof with a single phone call.
5. She could have urged Peters to contact Glenn to find out why he thinks he donated. That would be the 100% logical thing to do, unless you suspected Glenn was right and Peters was lying.

Now let us look at all the things one may have expected an ethical Prime Minister to do. Did she do any of the below?

1. Seek legal advice from the Cabinet Secretary or the Solictor-General as to whether she had an obligation to disclose Glenn’s revelation that he had donated $100,000 to assist Peters.
2. Inform the Electoral Commission that she has information which warrants investigation as to the accuracy of NZ First’s 2005 return. OR
3. Inform the Registrar of MPs Pecuniary Interests that she has information which warrants investigation as to the accuracy of Winston Peters’ 2005 return.
4. Inform the Secretary of Foreign Affairs that Owen Glenn had told her that he had donated $100,000 to assist the Foreign Minister, and that this created a conflict of interest for Peters in determining whether or not to appoint Glenn Consul to Monaco

Just as bad, she sat there while Winston Peters did his infamous “No” press conference, knowing that Owen Glenn had told her it was yes.

And even worse on the 18th of July, when Peters announced the $100,000 donation, she knew conclusively he was lying as Peters said the first he knew about the donation was earlier that day when Henry told him. But he knew, at a minimum, back in February when the PM told Peters what Glenn had said.

People need to understand that the entire last six months has been a charade. When Winston Peters pretended to be angry at the allegations, Clark knew that Glenn had told her that he has donated.

Even when Peters outrageously slandered the NZ Herald, accussed them of fabricating the Glenn e-mail, and demanded Murphy and Young resign, Clark stayed silent. It was an inaction unworthy of the highest office in the land.

Peters was actively considering Owen Glenn for a diplomatic appointment. Clark had been told by Glenn that he had donated $100,000 to assist Peters. This created a huge conflict of interest. But it seems Clark sat on this information. Doing so undermines the integrity of her Government.

And finally we have the hypocrisy. The rhetoric about how we needed the Electoral Finance Act to stop secret donations to political parties. And two months after that law was passed, Helen Clark learnt of a huge $100,000 secret donation. Even worse she learnt of it from a man seeking favours from the Minister he claimed to have donated it to benefit. But did she do anything at all? Did she demand the donation be revealed as she had just spent six months vowing that such donations be exposed? No she just sat there and asked no questions, and allowed Peters to keep denying it.

There are many worthy bodies in the UN system, that we can and should participate in. Our last spell on the Security Council was excellent for NZ and good for the UN.

However the Human Rights Council is a body we should be avoiding. Even the UN Secretary General has criticised it. Within just months it is becoming as discredited as its predecessor body. This is because they watered down all the reforms.

We can achieve nothing of use on this body. We will just get to condemn Israel several times a day, ignore Sudan, Zimbabwe and Syria and get to join Iran in telling off the United Kingdom for its treatment of women.

To my horror, not only is New Zealand standing for a spot on the Human Rights Council, we are actively campaigning for it, and have the campaign website.

Now at first I thought it was a joke – would we really use text messaging type English for a domain name of votenz4hrc.org. But alas it is a real genuine site.

The only way to reform the Human Rights Council is to deny it legitimacy by refusing to participate until it does genuine reform. Changing from within totally failed with its predecessor.

I’m tempted to start a “Do Note Vote for NZ” campaign. Not because NZ doesn’t have an excellent record on human rights, but because I don’t want that excellent record to lend legitimacy to a Council which is home to some of the worse abusers, and fails consistently to confront countries like Zimbabwe as the Government there is literally murdering its opponents.

How much money is being spent by MFAT on the campaign to win a seat? I can think of much better uses for it!

Winston Peters has had a $621 million increase for MFAT funding, over five years which will deliver 100 more diplomats.

Now this is a quirk of MMP. Ministers from parties not in Government can demand any amount of extra money from the Finance Minister, with the implicit threat of walking if they do not get it. This is no special skill.

We saw similiar last budget with a huge increase in funding for NZ Aid. But is an increase in quantity the same as an increase in quality? Well the Auditor-General reported that there were significant problems with how NZ Aid accounted in the field for its funding.

Now where does some of the funding go:

An increase in trade policy capacity, overseas and in Wellington, to push towards trade negotiations with key markets such as Korea, Japan, the United States, India and Mexico.

So Winston has managed to get more funding for trade policy staff, so he can then campaign against the trade agreements they negotiate. Is that not just a bit perverse?

Congratulations must go to MFAT though for taming their Minister so sucessfully. Ministries will forgive any manner of sins in a Minister so long as they bring home the bacon for them.

The Government has announced that they are moving the trade division of MFAT (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) to the Ministry of Economic Development, to make clear that trade has nothing to do with foreign policy.

MFAT will now be known as FOAM, the Foreign and Overseas Aid Ministry and the MED will become the Trade and Economic Department (TED).

Winston Peters will continue as the FOAM Minister while Phil Goff has been appointed the new TED Minister.