Speech: Peters - The State of New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs
new-zealand-first-party
Sun May 15 2011 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Speech: Peters - The State of New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs
Sunday, 15 May 2011, 9:13 am
Speech: New Zealand First Party
EMBARGOED AGAINST DELIVERY
Rt. Hon Winston Peters
Leader NZ First
Address to: UN Youth Conference
Auckland University
Date: Sunday 15 May 2011
Time: 9am
“The State of New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs”
Thank you for your invitation to speak on a subject critical to New Zealand’s economic and social future, our place in the region in which we live, and indeed the wider world.
It is a paradox that in a country as extrovert and outward looking as ours is, and where our citizens know much about other countries affairs, that there are no votes in Foreign Affairs, speeches on the subject are ignored by the media, and our Parliament has practically ceased to debate the subject.
Given New Zealand’s present economic position and the heightened competition of international interests, how New Zealand reacts is an issue of critical importance.
A failure to understand this spells immediate, medium, and long term disaster for this country.
It is said “that when the going gets tough, the tough get going” and if we are ever to restore our rightful place as a leading performer in the first world then we had better understand that a lack in investment in foreign affairs and aid will have irreversible consequences.
Almost exactly three years ago there was a seismic change in New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs.
In April 2008 a major funding injection for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was announced.
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It committed $520 million in operational funding and a capital injection of $98 million over the following five years.
That investment recognised that for far too long we had struggled to manage the demands we faced offshore.
The international agenda had become increasingly crowded, complex and competitive, where small countries like New Zealand risked having their interests pushed aside unless they were able to make themselves heard.
It acknowledged the dangers of previous incremental tinkering with the management of our international representation.
This seismic change was to allow Foreign Affairs to take a major step up in promoting our foreign policy and trade interests; to better lead the “New Zealand Inc” effort overseas, and to improve its ability to help New Zealanders overseas in trouble.
Diplomatic and support staff overseas, within five years, would be increased by over 50% and back home a boost to staff levels and skills in Wellington was designed to lift capacity in high priority areas such as Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, Trade, and the environment.
New Zealand had a well deserved international reputation as a small but active, independent and decent country and we recognised back then the need to guard that reputation jealously, and ensure that it was continually renewed in the years ahead.
This change showed an awareness of what countries similar to New Zealand in size, for example Singapore and Norway, were investing in representation two and a half times greater than our own.
If these two smart countries saw the advantages of greater numbers and quality of representation abroad then maybe they had something to teach us.
Preceding the MFAT budget increase announcement in 2008 New Zealand had increased its overseas aid to a target of $601 million by 2010 – 2011, or 0.35% of GDP.
Before even the first earthquake in Christchurch in 2010 the present government reversed both funding increases for MFAT and NZ Aid.
Both MFAT and NZ Aid then faced zero budget growth for the following four or more years.
However, much of the language remained the same.
Apparently we were to achieve more in diplomatic effort but with less funding.
Two aspects of the present approach are novel.
The first is a “hub and spokes” system of overseas representation where one embassy would be the “hub” with a full complement of diplomats and staff whilst others would be “spokes” with an Ambassador surviving on a communication system and some local staff, in other words, diplomacy by computer.
The second novelty, was to “open some doors and windows” at MFAT and expose this most internationally competitive department to competition from outside its ranks.
That means choosing diplomats from the private sector and from a political personnel bank i.e. former politicians.
At the end of my time as Minister of Foreign Affairs every diplomatic post was filled by a career professional, highly trained and experienced in their professional calling.
Now a number of these key posts are being assigned to people with the “right” political credentials.
What these changes are doing to a dedicated group of professional public servants can only be the subject of speculation but personally these changes, in my view, are most likely going to be disastrous.
We as a country became a key player in the organisational choreography of Asia as a result of highly competent diplomatic effort and the arduous grooming of personal relations between MFAT staff and overseas counterparts.
Likewise those capacities enhanced our relations with the European Union and countries emerging from the Iron Curtain, and indeed Russia itself.
And of utmost importance, personal skills and relationships lifted our relations with the United States to an unparalleled level of co operation in over two decades.
Now, following the cuts and a novel approach, how are we going to be seen?
Pulling, or not pulling our weight?
Influential, or not important?
These are the real questions.
For of one thing we can be sure; if we don’t invest internationally, in a much more urgent sense in ‘NZ Inc’ abroad then there are serious collateral consequences for our economic and social performance at home.
Put bluntly, you can’t make sales if you have no front shop staff.
NZ invests far too little in the MFAT presence abroad and our apathy towards wise export priority policies has long been lamentable.
There is a sad irony to all this and right on our doorstep.
In this week’s budget in Australia, their government invested in a record foreign aid commitment because that country sees security benefits in doing so.
Their targets are to focus on their neighbouring region with strategies to lift people out of poverty, boost education and other humanitarian aid focusing on concerns such as unacceptable rates of infant mortality and maternal care to name just two objectives.
“Reducing poverty is in our national security and national economic interests” Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said. “Poverty breeds instability and extremism in our region and globally, and creates conditions that lead to more refugees, as people flee form violence or hardship”
The thinking behind Australia’s changes this week could have been lifted directly out of New Zealand’s budget investments for Aid and MFAT in 2007 and 2008.
New Zealand was already in trouble internationally before the regressive changes made by the present government.
From personal experience I can tell you that when a countries economic performance is failing it has a direct bearing on its diplomacy.
It corrodes the respect other countries have for our objectives and it misrepresents the international status that we seek and rightfully deserve.
For we are one of only nine countries with an unbroken line of democracy in 157 years.
It should mean something, and would, if our economic performance also backed it up.
In conclusion, this conference is not about some eccentric favored project abstract to the interests of the ordinary New Zealand citizen.
Rather, it is about understanding our region and the world in which we live, responding to the ever growing complexities of international engagement and trade, and rising to meet the investment challenges so critical to achieving our stated objectives.
That is of course of we want to be economic world leaders again, and the most respected country in our region, which geographically, because of our ethnic reach, covers a quarter of the world’s surface.
I congratulate all of you who have comprehended the seriousness of this weekend’s discussion.
ENDS
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