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Posts Tagged ‘Murray McCully’

Murray McCully’s crusade

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 19th, 2010

Someone forgot to send Murray McCully the memo that it is the policy of his Government to pursue “trust based relationships” with the voluntary sector.  He recently suspended the funding arrangements that channel $26 million a year of our aid budget through NZ-based NGOs like World Vision, Oxfam, Save the Children – no consultation, no evidence base, no policy analysis. Just Mr McCully’s assertion the funding arrangements are out of step with the Government’s new aid focus on economic development in the Pacific.

Mr McCully claims to be a champion of accountability and cost-effective stewardship of taxpayer funds. But he is attacking NGOs who internationally are the most cost-effective providers of development aid.  And he is trashing a partnership between the NGOs and the aid programnme that has been around for 35 years, has stringent accountabilities, and has been used by the Auditor General as a case study in how to manage funding to NGOs.

So what is he up to?  This is the latest episode in the Minister’s crusade. Last year he shut down NZAID and shifted the aid programme back into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and changed its mandate from eliminating poverty to promoting economic development.  He then took revenge on the NGOs umbrella group the Council for Development slashing its funding by 75% for having had the temerity to criticise the changes to NZAID.

He is now re-organising the funding arrangements for NGOs. He claims it is about improving accountability and effectiveness but his real agenda is more ideological in my view, as revealed by his comment on Radio NZ that “rather too many of these programmes are focused on trade union rights in obscure parts of the world”.

Meanwhile the NGOs and their partners in developing countries who run the aid projects are left wondering whether they will have funding this year.

The weird thing about all this is that the Minister is clearly hostile to almost everything the aid programme stands for. He has a history of being a bullying micro-manager, constantly interfering in operational decisions, abusing officials and rubbishing much of the work they do.  Seems like history is repeating itself.

For the full story see my op ed in today’s Dom Post.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs
7 Comments

McCully v Brash

Posted by Trevor Mallard on May 18th, 2010

Prickly woman from Hong Kong reports from Auckland.

What were Murray McCully and Don Brash chomping at each other over at Soul this Sunday afternoon?

Seems things got a tad heated from Brash towards McCully at one point the good Doctor put on a good show of hands waving in agitation at McCully. They both departed in separate directions.

Nukes?  Tax?  Abolishing benefits? Cutting super?

Wonder what it was.

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Filed under: national
15 Comments

McCully slams Key’s whaling plan

Posted by Trevor Mallard on April 24th, 2010

Remember John Key’s secret plan to stop Japan’s whaling by allowing them to catch whales.

His plan was promoted in and adopted by an IWC  committee chaired by his representative Geoff Palmer.

The outrage was heard around the world.

McCully has finally seen which way the wind is blowing and has slammed Key’s plan.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Pacific issues, conservation, whaling
17 Comments

McCully not Frank enough

Posted by Trevor Mallard on January 22nd, 2010

Foreign Affairs needs a Minister on top of their game and focussed.

The latest shambles with Fiji just shows McCully isn’t.

McKinnon, Goff or Peters all knew how to play chess and would have worked through Bainimarama’s options before announcing a diplomatic re-engagement.

They would have made it clear that the nominee had to be beyond reproach and certainly not from the banned list.

It is pretty embarrassing for all Kiwis to see our Minister of Foreign Affairs getting publicly dicked around by a two bit dictator.

Time for a reshuffle John. Simon and Steven are going to be busy aren’t they.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, national
6 Comments

A tale of two cities newspapers

Posted by Grant Robertson on January 13th, 2010

There is not a lot of variety in the New Zealand media, given our size and the domination of a couple of key players.  But today we have an interesting divide between the NZ Herald and the Dom Post on just what is on the agenda for discussions between Hilary Clinton and Murray McCully.  Bear with me here, but it all started with the Herald’s in-depth coverage of the Clinton visit on Saturday, which included the cringe-making headline in the print edition ” They like us again”. That story tells us that military exercises between NZ and US are all set to resume and all will be revealed very soon.

The Weekend Herald understands it is likely to be announced next week when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, Kurt Campbell, visit New Zealand.

Now these sorts of stories do not come out of thin air and Audrey Young, the author of the article, is a highly respected journalist. The rest of the articles in the Weekend Herald extensively quote Murray McCully, so one could be forgiven for assuming him, or to quote one of my favourite journalistic euphemisms ” someone close to the Minister’s thinking” was the source.

Clare Trevett follows the story up today with an account of Mrs Clinton’s programme and informs us

High on the agenda is understood to be the United States’ review of the security relationship with New Zealand and plans to drop the US ban on military exercises with New Zealand.

However in the Dom Post today, Martin Kay has a story headlined ‘Defence ties with NZ ‘not in Clinton’s portfolio’. It tells us

Sources close to this week’s visit by American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have scotched speculation that she will announce an end to the ban on United States-New Zealand military exercises.

The article goes on to say that actually the question of military exercises is not even in the Secretary of State’s portfolio, and that a US review of our defence relationship had not yet been completed and quoted the US Embassy as saying

“The review is ongoing and no conclusions have yet been drawn.” 

Hmmm, a curious case. I can imagine the Dom Post’s editors asked its reporters how they could miss a pretty damn big story, and they went and checked with the US Embassy and discovered it was just not happening.

Now this is all quite amusing, but it does raise a couple of serious questions. First, how on earth do we get two so contradictory stories? My experience always tells me to back cock-up over conspiracy. But you do have to wonder how it is that the NZ Herald could have gained the impression that there was to be a major announcement if it was not from someone in the NZ Government? Was there an attempt to get it on the agenda by raising it through the media? or just someone getting way ahead of themeselves?  If it is either of these then it is bad politics  and poor diplomacy from the National Government.

The other thing I do know from my MFAT experience is that the US will be less than impressed that the idea that there would be an announcement on military exercises has been made public if it is not going to happen on this visit. These visits are carefully managed and likely outcomes discussed well in advance. The rivalries in the US system are also a factor, and the notion that the State Department might be stepping on the toes of Defence will go down very badly.

Anyway, it will be most interesting to see what does get discussed/announced, and which of our daily journals of record is right about this.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, defence
15 Comments

Public sector reform McCully style

Posted by Phil Twyford on January 4th, 2010

Tucked away in the back of the Sunday Star-Times yesterday was a recruitment ad for a new deputy secretary development in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  This position heads up New Zealand’s half billion dollar a year taxpayer-funded overseas aid programme – the agency ‘formerly known as NZAID’. What caught my eye was the lack of NZAID branding in the ad; the latest indication that Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully is slowly and steadily dismantling NZAID’s identity as a specialist development agency. The new head of NZAID is now just another dep-sec in the MFAT structure. His or her job is to “lead the 200 person business unit within the Ministry which manages” the aid programme.

If you follow these issues you’ll remember that McCully ignored the pleas of Treasury, development experts, the NGO community, and the Oppposition in the early months of 2009 and dissolved NZAID’s semi-autonomous status.  The public debate wasn’t just about structure. NZAID’s independence was established specifically to allow it to develop specialist expertise in development, and protect the aid programme from being used as a diplomatic slush fund as an in-depth review in 2001 found that it had been. McCully on the other hand  wanted the programme brought back within his political reach, and its mandate shifted from poverty elimination to economic development.

The new regime is still in its infancy. The transition was slowed by the recruitment and settling in of the new MFAT Secretary John Allen. I don’t imagine that McCully, having bulldozed decisions through in the face of advice from officials and public opinion, will rest until he gets the changes he wants. He is hostile to the very notion of aid and development, and from what I hear he abuses and bullies his senior officials in their regular meetings.  NZAID staff are rightly proud of the innovative work the agency has done since its inception in 2002 but spend much of their time these days trying to protect it from a vindictive and nit-picking Minister who described them in a speech last year as “faceless, unelected, unaccountable, aid bureaucrats”.

The NGOs, for having had the temerity to criticise McCully’s changes to NZAID, have also received a bit of a slap from the Minister. Their umbrella group the Council for International Development has had its funding cut by 40%, and its budget discussions drawn out month after month as McCully questioned the worth of funding them. He has already signalled a zero-based negotiation for the next financial year. Woe betide the officials and sector groups that cross a Minister who has spent his career as a backroom political in-fighter.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, overseas aid
7 Comments

McCully RWC cock ups continue Key needs to sort

Posted by Trevor Mallard on October 22nd, 2009

Fresh from his shocking fortnight killing Maori broadcasting rights McCully’s knifing of the IRB on the volunteer programme has now seen the light of day in the Herald. 

When I was Minister i/c RWC the volunteer programme was to be a big part of the legacy. We were to trial the programme at the Rowing World Champs next year and hoped to have tens of thousands of people with short training invloved with teams and venues. There would then be a great database from which to invite these people to continue to volunteer – because all the evidence around volunteering is that there is a large group of people who will volunteer if asked but don’t offer themselves.

McCully fell out with the IRB over branding. The IRB were not keen on paying for black t-shirts with silver ferns for their volunteers. They have sponsors who have a right to be recognised and they thought that other teams might object if the supposedly neutral organising group looked like the All Black support group.

So McCully went his own way. Told the IRB to get lost. Launched a pathetically weak and ill prepared programme at a beehive reception 2 years from kick off. The graphics, video and website looked like they had been pulled together that morning in his office and there are lots of school kids with IT skills that could have done better.

But people volunteering for for New Zealand 2011 are left with the impression that they are offering to be volunteers for the RWC.  If the website was a newspaper then I’m sure they would be in trouble for false advertising.

They won’t be part of the team. They will get one of McCully’s black t-shirts with the non rugby fern. They won’t get a world cup track suit, shirt, cap. They won’t get near a player. They won’t get to go to the venues. They won’t host the teams, the accredited media or the VIP guests.

We are meant to be a team of 4million supporting the Cup. It should be a big thing. Until now I’ve been pretty quiet because I hoped that things would come right.

But in this area and in the commercial leveraging area which McCully says is Brownlee’s responsibility the government approach is just a shambles and is placing our opportunity to benefit from the cup – both economically and socially – at risk. John Key needs to sort this too.

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Filed under: economy, social development, sport
20 Comments

It isn’t true

Posted by Trevor Mallard on October 6th, 2009

I’ve now been told by three people – one beehive, one media and one of ours that there is a rumour circulating that Murray McCully has been feeding me information about the Maori TV bid for RWC broadcast rights.

Over the last fifteen years I’ve talked to McCully more than any other nat. (not a high test given mutual allergy). I sort of admire his place as a long term survivor and his role as the Black Prince which would have added something to In the Loop.

It wasn’t him that told me Key had approved the deal in a discussion with Sharples. Two sources. Both good.

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Filed under: Budget, M?ori, media, national, sport
23 Comments

McCully takes revenge on aid NGOs

Posted by Phil Twyford on September 29th, 2009

Successive governments have enjoyed a good relationship with the country’s overseas aid NGOs: groups like World Vision, Oxfam, Tear Fund, Save the Children, Volunteer Service Abroad.

They have seen the aid groups as part of an NZ Inc approach: raising private donations from the public, building awareness of development issues, and often working together with the government to deliver aid in the field. As in many OECD countries this partnership between government and aid NGOs has been ramped up over the last decade, with NZAID funding the NGOs’ aid programmes to the tune of about $32 m per year.

But the partnership has just taken a hit. Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has personally intervened to cut the funding of the NGOs’ peak body by 40%.  Last year NZAID funded the Council for International Development $900,000 to do a range of work including coordination of disaster relief efforts, capacity building and training of NGO staff, and public awareness work. That is being cut to $650,000 this year and $500,000 the next.

McCully is unlikely to admit it, and on past form he won’t leave a paper trail, but you can bet the cut is a response to the NGO community’s public criticism of his move to restructure NZAID back into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and change its mandate earlier this year. The NGOs were trenchant in their criticism and it wasn’t just the usual campaigners. Rotary, the Salvation Army and agencies like World Vision and Tear Fund who have traditionally been more circumspect in their public advocacy, made it clear to the Government they thought McCully’s plans ill-judged. Most of the NGOs backed a campaign called Don’t Corrupt Aid.

Mr McCully has never been a fan of NGOs. In his speech announcing the restructuring of NZAID he referred to

self-interested individuals from within the aid community [who think] that New Zealand’s aid budget is some kind of sacred cow that should be placed above and beyond the stewardship of the government of the day, and subject only to the attentions of so- called “development experts” who might bring their superior intellects and sensibilities to this task.

And it was hard to know if he was referring to the NGOs or NZAID when he referred to “faceless, unelected, unaccountable, aid bureaucrats”.

It is worrying Mr McCully is willing to cut funding in such a vengeful way. It is bullying from a Government that can’t take public criticism.

It is even more disturbing he is willing to to cut funding that is an investment in building the capacity of NGOs to be accountable and effective partners in the delivery of taxpayer funded overseas aid. But then this is the same Minister who ignored Treasury advice that his restructuring of NZAID would make it less accountable for the spending of taxpayer dollars.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, international, overseas aid
6 Comments

McCully policy does little for women dying in PNG

Posted by Phil Twyford on September 21st, 2009

Women in Papua New Guinea  are dying in childbirth at 23 times the New Zealand rate. That is 1500 women dying preventable deaths every year, and 30% of them are teenagers.

It is one of the most shocking indicators of a country in crisis.  The maternal death rate  in PNG, one of our closest neighbours, is on a par with Afghanistan. And there is no sign of improvement.

PNG has its share of problems: poverty, HIV/AIDS epidemic, corruption, and appalling governance. It’s the last on that list that is the big driver. The failure of the state to provide basic health services to its citizens is what has caused the skyrocketing rates of women dying in childbirth.

PNG health workers at a parliamentary hearing today on maternal health in the Pacific testified the key factors behind the figures are the collapse of rural health services, and now a dire shortage of trained midwives.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully likes to rail against aid to Pacific nations’ public sectors but the failure of the PNG public service to train midwives over the last decade has directly caused the preventable deaths of thousands of women in childbirth and heaven knows how many children.  Submitters at today’s hearing told how the PNG government decided in 2001 to shift all midwife training into universities but failed to put a curriculum in place. Since then no midwives have been registered.

(more…)

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Filed under: international, overseas aid, poverty
22 Comments

Big yachts in Auckland

Posted by Trevor Mallard on September 16th, 2009

The previous government’s decision to fund the Americas Cup challenge was a bit controversial. Even my old mate McCully criticised it. Notwithstanding the fact that it was revenue +ve for the government. Because most of the funding comes from off shore and results in both PAYE and GST here.

And the challenge hasn’t been that smooth. Too many lawyers. But in the interim – and without any extra government funding the team has been doing well and we are going to get another of the alternative cup events down here early next year. Good little economic boost as well as some fun.

This is what Team NZ say:

Auckland will host a second Louis Vuitton regatta in March 2010.

Following the success of the LVPS regatta sailed in Auckland last February, Emirates Team New Zealand and other teams have been working with major sponsor Louis Vuitton to establish a top level series of regattas.

The first regatta of the Louis Vuitton World Series will be held at Nice, France, from November 7 – 22 this year. In March 2010 Auckland will host the second round and the third will he held at La Maddalena, Italy, in May.

(more…)

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Filed under: Auckland, Tax, business, economic, events, finance, jobs
8 Comments

Will Stage Challenge be saved?

Posted by Chris Hipkins on August 21st, 2009

Earlier this week I challenged Anne Tolley and Murray McCully on their funding cuts for programmes like Stage Challenge, the Pasifika Festival, PolyFest, kapa haka, and other events that have previously been sponsored through Mission On or Push Play. Information McCully provided in answer to Written Parliamentary Questions and during the Select Committee Estimates process suggested that all such sponsorship had been cut.

I now understand that Stage Challenge organisers have been given a verbal undertaking that sponsorship will continue, but that it will be funded through Education rather than SPARC. I hope that’s the case, because it would be a shame to see programmes like these end. Not all kids are sporty kids. Some prefer dance or drama, which are often just as beneficial from a physical activity/health perspective. It’s important that in their drive to get more kids playing sport the government doesn’t lose sight of that.

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Filed under: education, health
9 Comments

Machiavelli McCully rules – Key misses twice

Posted by Trevor Mallard on August 2nd, 2009

Blowhole gets it right on the board but misses on the Nat Presidency and then dumps on the new President blogging from the floor of the conference. An earlier post backgrounds the candidates.

I don’t know whether Key’s early support of Sir Wira was naive, polite or a genuine attempt to build bridges with Maori. But the latter doesn’t work with your grassroots voting Nat delegate. That was pretty clear a couple of weeks ago. Then his support switched to Scott Simpson who other Board members wouldn’t back.

In a real example of McCully at work, his old mate and business associate, Peter Goodfellow won the Presidency. Last time there was a real contest McCully ran the Boag campaign – and from what Blowhole says this ones about as good.

What is clear is that when McCully and Joyce work together they are pretty much unstoppable within the national party.  Bill English better watch out.

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Filed under: national
7 Comments

Farrar @ Risk – Kiwiblog Endangered

Posted by Trevor Mallard on July 16th, 2009

Story on little blue penguins being run over - here.  Not sure whether the breeding season bit is in good taste. I see David is still on the outer with McCully.

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Filed under: humour
16 Comments

Nats drop aid target when going gets tough

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 31st, 2009

Q: How much of a priority should it be to give overseas aid when we are in the teeth of a global recession?

A: Even more of a priority than normal…when it is predicted the same recession will drive 100 million people into extreme poverty this year.

You might think overseas aid should get cut, along with pay equity, public sector jobs, research and technology, superannuation, public transport and so much else in these straitened times. You might think that. Especially if your name is Murray McCully or Bill English. But is it right?

I say no. The poor in developing countries are far more vulnerable than we are in times of global recession because they don’t have the safety nets we do. Which is why the World Bank and IMF are urging rich countries like us to accelerate our promised increases in aid. But last Thursday’s budget has the Government slamming on the brakes, stripping $194 million out of the next three years’ of aid spending. They are still increasing the aid budget in real terms but much more slowly than the multi-year commitments made by Labour.

Why does this matter? I think it is because we have a responsibility to people in our Pacific neighborhood who are worse off than us. No matter how grim the recession is for us right now, it is nothing compared to the extreme poverty felt by people in say Papua New Guinea who have much less ability to weather the storm. In the Pacific the financial crisis could well squeeze income from remittances and tourism. On top of shrinking aid budgets that could make life very tough. The other thing is that we have made international commitments to fight extreme poverty in the poorest countries. This goes beyond the year by year ups and downs in our own national circumstances.

With these Budget cuts National has walked away from a  30 year commitment by successive New Zealand governments to the international spending target on overseas aid which is 0.7% of Gross National Income per capita.  Instead of reaching 0.35% of GNI as planned, New Zealand’s aid spending will stall at 0.31% for the next three years.  This is a setback.  New Zealand gives less as a percentage of our national income per head than almost any other developed nation. If we are going to meet our international responsibilities we must commit to staged increases year on year.

McCully professes not to pay much heed to the 0.7% target. Notes in the Budget documents confirm it is no longer a priority for this Government.

Readers may have heard Radio NZ report today that papers released under the OIA show Treasury did not think McCully had a strong case for getting rid of NZAID’s semi-autonomous status and warned of risks around the loss of transparency that would occur as a result of McCully putting the agency back into the foreign affairs ministry.  There is plenty more where that came from but I will save it for another post.

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Filed under: Budget
16 Comments

Cock-up or Machiavelli @ Work

Posted by Trevor Mallard on May 24th, 2009

I’ve been reflecting on the last couple of weeks in politics – Melissa Lee, Christine Rankin especially and wondering if it is possible for a government in New Zealand to use up so much political capital accidently or whether there is a possibility of some sort of weird plan.

We have the budget coming up this week. It is an enormous opportunity for the government. For the first time since 1984, when our diplomats had been using post credit cards to draw down foreign denominated loans,there are no rules.  Key and English have a blank canvas and enough political credit given the scale of their win and the economic crisis to do almost anything.

What we don’t know is whether they have the guts to invest some of their massive political capital in the sort of change that could ensure not only they win the next election but also become the natural party of government for the next couple of decades.

But they have to be bold. They have to have real vision. They won’t do it with a few places for tourists to ride bikes and other changes at the margin. Every now and again I see glimpses of that from Key – but this is the test. There won’t be another budget with such an opportunity.

I write this safe in the knowledge that the budget is in bed. Nothing I write can change it.

And more importantly that is the case for the government as well. And what I can’t work out is whether their massive and extraordinarily highly paid political pr team has for the last three weeks been focusing on a massive effort to sell a radical budget, whether Lee and Rankin are crude old fashioned deliberate diversions or whether the old “if in doubt its a cock-up” theory prevails.

John Key chose Melissa Lee. I could never understand why. Her maiden speech was intellectually incoherant – it was an enormous untaken opportunity. It was a sign of lack of political savvy. She was a shiny star but with no substance. A real contrast with just about all of the Labour maiden speeches and several of her National colleagues.

Mt Albert was the wrong electorate to use her Korean ethnicity as an electoral plus. It was a selection certain to cause local upset.

And she has performed in a way that was predictable. I don’t need to catelogue her mistakes but not many people who have watched her in parliament are surprised.

So why did John Key chose her?

Similarly with Christine Rankin. The Cabinet was divided. McCully has made it clear to Trans tasman he was away. John Key ended up backing Bennett against all her more experienced colleagues. It was a decision that didn’t make sense.  National owed Rankin nothing. No one voted National because she appeared at their rallies. In fact the reverse could be true. Her support was as valuable as that given by Cardinal Tamaki to English and the Brethren to Brash.

Joyce appears to be running the government pr machine these days. He is good. We saw that through they way he built the Nats from their 2002 train wreck.

So what is he up to?  Maybe the budget is massive. Maybe they took more risks than they intended and the last couple of weeks have been a bit of insurance so Lee and Bennett can take the blame if the budget doesn’t work?

Whatever the future of the government and of John Key could well be at stake.

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Filed under: Auckland, Budget, Uncategorized, by-election, mt albert, national, parliament
38 Comments

Let the Penguin in John

Posted by Trevor Mallard on May 20th, 2009

I find it hard to come to David Farrar’s defence but Bill English’s decision to exclude him from the budget lock-up is just wrong. Even more so Bernard Hickey. While both write much that I don’t agree with to ban someone because they write a blog is just plainly unjustifiable. Treasury refered the question of whether to let Farrar in to us in 2007 and the decision was yes.

He wrote blogs in 2007 and 2008.

Beehive rumour has it that John Key is pissed with Farrar for breaking the news of the John Allen appointment weeks before the final decision was taken by Cabinet.

Maybe he needs to discuss the matter with his Minister of Foreign Affairs who regularly uses Farrar to fly kites.

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Filed under: democracy, national
32 Comments

Which Murray to believe?

Posted by Grant Robertson on May 11th, 2009

Gordon Campbell has already posted on the strange credibility gap between Murray McCully’s nasty  speech announcing the changes to NZAID and the Cabinet papers that made the decisions. It looks like McCully could not quite get the Cabinet paper he wanted because the facts and evidence did not stack up, but this has not stopped his true views shining through in the speech. Word coming out of NZAID is that in the wake of the speech staff morale is at an all time low.  The speech is regarded as an assault on the professionalism and credibility of staff or as McCully so kindly referred to them in the speech “ faceless, unelected, unaccountable, aid bureaucrats“. This from a National Party who promised to respect and ‘de-politicise’ the public sector?.  Any hope that McCully might have come round to the value of NZAID’s work and mission has faded fast.

Alongside McCully’s attack on NZAID itself, his barbs at the ‘self interested‘ aid community has NGOs furious. Their public response has been muted, but that is hardly surprising is it? They know they have to work with him over the next couple of years. This is, of course, the very point of the criticism of the McCully plan. If you politicise the giving of aid, those who rely on the support will feel the need to play the game.

But concern about the McCully plan is widespread. I hosted a group of church leaders for breakfast on Friday, and a number of them expressed deep concern about the impact of the changes on New Zealand’s aid programme, and our international credibility. I think National will live to regret Murray’s strange personal crusade, whatever it actually may be.

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Filed under: international, national
3 Comments

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