Cocktail parties, cables and ex-MPs

Graham Kelly

You have been a good servant to your country for decades. You've spent your career dragging your family from one New Zealand diplomatic post to another. You've done your time in the tough spots, the unglamorous Papua New Guineas, the tricky Middle Easts.

You've climbed the diplomatic ladder, rung by painstaking rung. After 20 years that top job - a high commissioner or ambassador - is within reach.

And then back in New Zealand the Prime Minister decides to reshuffle Cabinet and you have to spend the next three years helping a former minister, who has been shafted the polite way, to do a job you have been training for all your life.

"Some [political appointees] have contributed with distinction in that role," says Wendy Hinton, president of the Foreign Service Association, which represents about 450 diplomatic staff.

"But really they are playing it a bit on a wing and a prayer because they don't have the background a trained diplomat has. A career diplomat has a solid basis of experience to offer, and they are not just thinking, 'Oh well, um, how should I do this'?"

New Zealand governments don't make many political appointments. It just seems that when there's a screw-up, a political appointee is involved. Or maybe it's just that we are more likely to hear about their mistakes.

Of about 40 head of mission positions, only about three are usually political appointments, most often in Ottawa and London. At present we have former Alliance minister Sandra Lee in Niue, former Labour speaker Jonathan Hunt in London, and former Labour MP Graham Kelly in Ottawa.

Two of the three have made embarrassing mistakes. Kelly made derogatory remarks about Maori, Asians and Pacific Islanders when briefing a Canadian senate committee.

Hunt, only months into the job, has made two blunders, inquiring about his eligibility for a $125-a-week British pension, then sitting out an Anzac Day service in his car because it was raining.

Philip Lewin, a former career diplomat who was posted to Melbourne, Moscow, Geneva and Washington, says in most cases the job is best left to the professionals.

He tempers that by saying his boss in Washington, former National Prime Minister Jim Bolger, did an outstanding job.

"Based on that experience alone I can say that some political appointments work very well but there are probably more occasions when things go awry. Diplomacy is better left to the diplomats. It is important that we put our best foot forward when overseas."

Former Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Richard Nottage says it is accepted the Government will sometimes make a political appointment, but ideally the professional service should provide the heads of mission.

"You need to have, in my view, a broad range of experience gained over many years in the craft, as it were. And that kind of experience is accumulated over many years of practising the craft, from the time that you are quite junior, going up through the ranks, operating in different countries, coming back periodically to Wellington and gradually accumulating a very large body of professional experience until the time that you finally break through and become a head of mission yourself."

Nottage says diplomats start an average day by reading messages that have come from Wellington and other posts and checking what the staff are up to.

Then there might be a meeting with officials of the host government, lunch with the New Zealand business community, a speech or a function. At the end of the day, the diplomat will write reports for head office and peruse the outgoing mail to Wellington.

"Almost invariably you will have a cocktail party and a dinner to attend after the work's finished - well, that's often work, too."

Nottage, who headed the department while National's Don McKinnon was Foreign Minister, says he wasn't consulted when political appointments were made.

And if he had reservations his views would not be taken into account.

Usually diplomatic posts are advertised within the service and the ministry makes a recommendation to the Foreign Minister.

Each government adopts its own process for political appointments. A spokesman for Foreign Minister Phil Goff says the Prime Minister will talk to the Foreign Minister about a possible appointment, then it goes to Cabinet for approval.

Russell Marshall, a former Labour minister, became High Commissioner to London after a chance meeting with Prime Minister Helen Clark in Oamaru.

Marshall is widely regarded to have excelled but he told the Listener during his tenure that a political nose wasn't sufficient to tip the balance between career diplomats and political appointees.

"I've never believed that even the keenest amateur could do as good a job as head of mission as the best professional could. If you come to the most senior position in a post like this and you have never been in any other positions in terms of routine, instinct and the way the system works, you can never be as good. None of us who are amateurs ever knows all the stuff there is to know."

Stephen Jacobi, former Assistant Trade Commissioner in Paris and deputy High Commissioner in Ottawa, says it can work well to have a former politician in the role and, contrary to rumour, staff don't resent their appointments.

"The job of a political appointment is somewhat different. You don't want them writing cables and talking to the foreign office. You want them, for example in London, out and about shaking hands with people in the city.

"You want them talking up New Zealand, you want them meeting the Queen. You want them attending the right functions and meeting the right people. That's the value we can get from politicians."

But, he says, New Zealand has a talented pool of professionals, and political appointments should be used sparingly and reserved for people with particular merit and distinction.

Lewin says diplomatic posts shouldn't be used to siphon off politicians who need to be moved on. But having had a good experience with Bolger, he's a pragmatist.

"If it works for New Zealand that's the most important thing."

What Kelly said:

This is an edited extract of the controversial presentation former Labour MP Graham Kelly gave to a Canadian senate committee considering the country's fisheries policies on April 14

Senator Gerald J. Comeau (Chairman): New Zealand is considered by many to be one of the world leaders in fisheries management and a place where economic theories on private fish quotas have been extensively put to the test ...

We understand that the High Commissioner from New Zealand is quite knowledgeable on the issues of fisheries, having served on their fisheries committee.

Kelly: I was put on the committee dealing with fisheries largely as a punishment. I did not know anything about fish other than they live in water ... I came to this issue from a position of ignorance but with an open mind about how the system worked. Having come from the left, in the Labour Party, at the start I opposed the privatisation of our fisheries through the introduction of the quota management system ... I have done a 180-degree turn because it has been a modern miracle for us, for ecological and conservation reasons alone ...

Overfishing and the sustainability issue are what drove the New Zealand Government to look at what we could do, first, to exploit the asset ourselves and, second, to protect the fisheries. The Government decided to introduce the quota management system and commercialise the fish stock ...

At that time, our Maori population comprised about 13 per cent of our total population ... Legislation guaranteed Maori 20 per cent of the fishery, so that was given in the form of quota ... Our Maori have done very well since. They now own 60 per cent of the quota. That has been a success story beyond anything ever imagined ...

Let me deal now with the stakeholders ... Canadians seem to consult to death so as not to offend each other. In New Zealand we have learned a new trick, which is consultation with the stakeholders. The stakeholders are commercial, recreational and environmental groups, Maori as well as regional and local government ... You also have to consult with the "greenies" and environmental groups, who drive you to distraction when you are trying to deal with this and are always in your face ... As this is an ecosystem-based management system, the first requirement is not to accept the proposition from the commercial companies that there is always fish left in the sea ...

The environmental principles are important because you can never reconcile those with the commercial pressures ...

On enforcement, one thing about the fishing companies, as they were, is that they all told lies, or almost all of them. They would say black was blue. They all had to be trained on observing the law and how do you do that? ... You have to be bloody-minded and ruthless in how you deal with this when you are starting ... The fines now are up to half a million dollars ... Often, the captain of a foreign vessel, a joint-venture vessel - and the Koreans are good at that - will say they did not know and did not realise or do not speak English. Well, hard luck ...

There has been tremendous growth of Maori fishing, Maori ownership and expertise. They have had increased employment, and of course it is nearly all exported, and the skills have been taught to those people, otherwise they would have gone out in a canoe or something. It has just been fabulous ...

Unlike the Atlantic, where they have overfished and you go to a port and see them bringing in fish about this size, we are very strict about the size of the fish we catch ... Every excuse is used. We had one case with a minister of religion on the shore, dressed in his cassock and looking like Moses, and he had all his congregation of Pacific Islanders there strip-mining the beach. They were taking everything that moved. He said it was for the Lord. Well, the Lord did not save him.

They were taking undersized fish. They were all fined, and he was fined the most.

Our new immigrants from Asia are one of our biggest problems, with their lack of understanding of conservation and the environment. We often see them strip-mining a beach of periwinkles and having a boil-up. If you are interested in the next generation, you cannot do that. You have to have a method by which the ethnic communities are not favoured. Our indigenous populations will say that it is their right under their treaties. Well, it is not their right. They do have access and fishing rights that others do not, but they cannot take undersized fish and they cannot take more than the allowed catch per day for recreational fishers ...

I would be very happy to take questions.

Chairman: It is something I had not really thought of before, that the Maori are quite different from the native people of Canada; they are one group. They are not something like 600 nations.

Kelly: No. There were seven canoes that came in 740 from Hawaiki, so there are seven tribes. They all held each other's hands to stop them from sinking on the voyage. Once they got to New Zealand, they started fighting and eating each other, so there have been Maori wars ever since then. Now they are learning to get along with each other. They will argue about their allocation of quota for their deep sea or inshore fisheries, but they will not go to war over it.

Senator Johnson: It was interesting when you were talking about the Maori. Your presentation was excellent.