5 March 2009 Media Statement

McCully axes $1.95m Pacific aid programme

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has axed a $1.95 million a year Pacific aid programme, in advance of his plans to disestablish the government development agency NZAID and end its focus on poverty elimination, says Labour’s Associate Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs Phil Twyford.

Phil Twyford said the closing down of the aid project was a classic example of “government tampering” that would damage the integrity of New Zealand’s aid efforts in the Pacific.

“The project supports hundreds of village communities across seven Pacific countries, helping with issues like conflict resolution and natural resource management.

“This appalling decision has to be seen in the context of Mr McCully’s move, without public consultation, to make radical changes quickly to NZAID’s mandate and structure,” Phil Twyford said.

“Not content with his secretive internal review process, the Minister is also intervening in the running of the detail of the aid programme, axing projects he personally doesn’t like. This level of ministerial intervention is unprecedented.”

Phil Twyford said the Government’s “secretive” approach was compounded today when it shut down a proposal to invite the Minister to brief the Foreign Affairs and Defence select committee on his plans for NZAID.

“At the meeting the chief executive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Murdoch and NZAID Executive Director Peter Adams declined to answer questions about the Minister’s review of NZAID’s semi-autonomous status and poverty focus on the grounds that these were policy matters being handled by the Minister,” Phil Twyford said.

“Labour and Green members on the committee then moved to invite Murray McCully to brief the committee on his plans for NZAID. Government members voted the motion down, thus denying Parliament and the public a chance to hear his plans, and politicising the committee’s role of scrutiny.

“Mr McCully is working behind the scenes to re-engineer a vital part of our foreign policy, worth $480 m a year. The public deserve to know what he is up to.”

ENDS

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