Sunday 6th September 2009: Q+A’s Guyon Espiner interviews Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, John Allen.

Points of interest:
- Aid and diplomacy are “inextricably linked” and aid should be used as a platform for trade
- “We’re going to have to wait a while” for trade deal with America, but the “signals” are that an FTA is “likely”
- Secretary of MFAT is no longer “the government’s chief adviser on foreign policy”; that was removed from his job description
- While the PM has ruled out a common currency with Australia, New Zealand “needs to be continue to be thoughtful about being a small currency exposed to significant volatility”
- New Zealand sees China as an opportunity, not as a threat
- Measure me by the number of exporters and how I use aid as a platform for trade
- MFAT did not advise the government to send the SAS into Afghanistan but wouldn’t confirm what advice was given

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at,
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

JOHN ALLEN interviewed by GUYON ESPINER

GUYON John Allen thank you very much for coming on the show this morning we really appreciate that, as Paul says you're the first non diplomat to take this position, the first businessman, the first outsider, you’ve obviously been brought in to make changes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, what change is needed in that department.

JOHN ALLEN – Secretary of Foreign Affairs & Trade
I'm not sure I was brought in to make change, I think this is a great ministry with very very strong people, very strong capability and a real history of delivering results for New Zealand, what I can do is add to that, work with the team to enhance that capability and shape it to be effective in the 21st century.

GUYON You’ve come though from the corporate world, from a very different world, has it surprised you the sorts of structure and the sorts of people and the sorts of mode of operation, I mean we see Foreign Affairs as a very hierarchical formal traditional department, have you been surprised by what you’ve seen?

JOHN No I haven't been surprised by that, I mean all organisations to be effective you need to be able to work through people, it's the same in the corporate world, it's certainly true in the Foreign Affairs world, but you are right that we need to break down hierarchies, we need to break down barriers, we need to open the organisation up to enable us to really achieve to our true potential.

GUYON And what are you doing to open it up?

JOHN Well I think there's a whole heap of things that can be done, I think part of it's about technology, part of it's about appearing on programmes like this, part of it is about building better networks into the business community with the Diaspora around the world, to ensure that the New Zealand voice is being heard.

GUYON In researching this interview we got a copy of your job description, at least under the Official Information Act, what strikes me about it is that what has been removed from that. Your predecessor was the government's chief advisor on foreign policy, that has been removed from your job description, that’s quite a big change isn't it?

JOHN Well I'm not sure it's that big a change, I mean the reality is under any leader it's the team and the quality of the team that ensures the quality of the advice, but clearly I haven't come to this role with a deep history in diplomacy or a deep history in diplomatic advice, I've got a history in business leadership, a history in delivering results within the corporate environment, I am relying and leveraging the skills of the ministry to deliver the quality diplomatic advice that the government requires.

GUYON And the feeling is that in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade your emphasis will be on trade rather than foreign policy, is that fair?

JOHN Well I think it's true that we need to focus very much on trade, I mean there's no doubt that for New Zealand to get out of the current global economic crisis, for us to make our way in the world we've got to trade even more effectively than we have in the past, but you can't disassociate trade and diplomacy, it's the long run diplomatic activity for example with China, over 20 years, that enabled us to be the first country in the world to land the FTA, it's long run diplomacy that lays the foundations for the trade agenda.

GUYON I'd like to talk about that trade agenda more specifically in a minute or so, but let's look more broadly at trade, and some of your criticisms about New Zealand in the past, in fact you have been very critical, you’ve said and I quote you from 2007 'New Zealanders and our businesses have been extraordinarily timid in putting their feet into the Australian market' for example. What can you do to change that timidity.

JOHN Well I think first up we've got to make heroes of our exporters and we've got to tell their stories, we've got to make sure that New Zealanders understand that there are people now in the face of the global economic crisis, in the face of volatility in foreign exchange, without the capital base that most countries would have, who are fearlessly going into markets all around the world and making a success of it. We've got to I think clone those people for New Zealand's future success.

GUYON Let's look more specifically at one of the trade agreements that we've been seeking for a long time, that is with the United States as part of the wider Trans Pacific Agreement, that is effectively stalled, can you tell us what the status of that is now and what progress you are making to ensure that we get that goal of a free trade agreement essentially with the United States.

JOHN Well as you know there's been a heap of activity around the relationship with the US, I mean Paul referred to the visit of Admiral Keating earlier this week, you know that you’ve heard from successive Secretaries of State about the warming of the relationship with New Zealand, there is a great deal of activity going on.

GUYON Yes but they're words, they're words aren’t they Secretary, they're words, what actions are we talking about here?

JOHN I don’t think they are words with respect Guyon.

GUYON Well where is the agreement at?

JOHN I think with respect the reality is that we're seeing more effective trading relationships between the two countries, we're seeing New Zealand exporters taking advantage of that additional warmth and the specific answer to your question, where is the TPP is that while we're going to have to wait a while before we know whether or not the Obama administration is actually going to take it forward, all of the signals which we are seeing, suggest that the diplomatic endeavour that we've been engaged in over a very long period of time is likely to bear fruit.

GUYON When?

JOHN Well I don’t know the answer to that question, I mean in part the answer to that question is in the hands of the US, but what I can say is that New Zealand has been focused on this, that we have been doing a number of things in a variety of different areas to enable us to be successful in this space and that we can be confident that the foundations are being laid for the TPP to be delivered.

GUYON Before I leave trade can we talk briefly about India, we are negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with India, presumably our goal is to get access for our agricultural goods into that giant market, do they want in return access to our labour market like China did?

JOHN Well look I'm not as closely across the current state of the India FTA.

GUYON You would know though surely whether they wanted access to our labour market, that would be quite a big deal wouldn’t it?

JOHN Well I'm sure it would be a feature of any FTA that we're looking at what is required by each country, but you're right to say that agricultural exports to India would be a key feature obviously, coal is already a major driver of our economic relationship with India. The opportunity with that country is enormous as you know as one of the key BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China] nations, and in fact Mr Groser's been in India over the last week, in part around climate change, in part around building our relationship with that country ahead of a successful FTA.

GUYON And would we be prepared to offer India access to our labour market?

JOHN Look I don’t know the detail, I haven't been briefed on the detail of the India FTA sufficient to be able to tell you where we are with the specifics of that dialogue, but what I would say to you is that from New Zealand's point of view opening up the India market to our agricultural exports, enabling New Zealanders to be more effective into that market is a real win for New Zealand.

GUYON Okay can we move from trade to aid? Now one of the big changes has been effectively moving New Zealand aid within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs again. Now the big worry for some people is that that will tie our aid policy to our political and diplomatic goals. Should aid in your opinion be aligned with political and diplomatic goals.

JOHN Well I think aid has always been aligned with diplomatic goals, I mean if you look at the footprint of our aid, it's predominantly into the Pacific, the reality is that there's both diplomatic and aid initiatives in the Pacific and they are inextricably linked.

GUYON You, in the Cabinet papers which were produced in making that decision, said that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs should report back to Cabinet if you were going to make any significant changes which would influence the delivery of our overseas development programme. Are you going to make such changes?

JOHN Well I'm working through with the NZ Aid and wider ministry teams exactly how we give effect to the cabinet directive, which of course I wasn’t directly involved with, but what I can tell you is that aid will continue to be a pivotal component of New Zealand's outreach, and as I've already said the two in terms of diplomacy and aid, are in my view inextricably linked.

GUYON That’s interesting though isn't it, because some people would say well aid is about eliminating poverty, it's about doing our bit for countries that are less fortunate than our own, rather than simply forwarding and progressing some political agenda.

JOHN But if we talk about it rather than at that high principle level, if we talk about it in reality, what it means is about specific countries and enabling their future and economic success, and if you think about it in that way you can understand that diplomacy has a role to play and aid has a role to play in delivering that economic success platform.

GUYON Can we move to foreign policy advice and to some of our key relationships, our closest relationship obviously is with Australia, and we've had ministers and the Prime Minister over there trying to forward that relationship just recently. You are thinking pretty big in this area though aren’t you, if I go back a couple of years to some of your speeches, you talk about having a common currency, common borders, a common passport, are you advising the government that that is the way to go with Australia?

JOHN I'm certainly advising the government to be ambitious in their view of the relationship with Australia.

GUYON A common currency? That’s pretty ambitious.

JOHN Well the common currency's been ruled out by Mr Key in some of his more recent speeches, as you will have heard in Australia, but I do think that New Zealand needs to continue to be thoughtful about being a small currency, exposed to significant volatility, particularly as a trading nation, because when you talk to exporters, one of the primary concerns that they have is the volatility of our currency, it's one of the primary barriers that they face in the delivering – actually entering the export market, but that’s been ruled out by Mr Key in his recent speeches, but I do think that there's heaps that we can do with Australia, both in terms of the bilateral relationship between Australia and New Zealand, but also working together out into the wider world.

GUYON Can I ask you whether you are going to continue to co-chair the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum, or do you see that now as a conflict of interest and something that you are going to withdraw from?

JOHN Mr McCully opened the last forum meeting which I did share by announcing it was my last, so I suspect I'm not going to continue to do that.

GUYON Can I look at some of the differences that we have with Australia, because there are some, especially in the way that we see the world and our sort of strategic influence. I mean Australia interestingly sees China as a threat, it issued a white paper saying that it's replaced Indonesia as a potential threat to Australia, and both Australia and America have said that China needs to explain its military build up otherwise we will be suspicious. Does New Zealand share that view, that China is potentially a threat?

JOHN I don’t think New Zealand sees any threat from China, the reality for us is that China represents a very significant opportunity. I think in terms of the Australian white paper, you have to look at that through a lens of risk management, which what the Australians were applying to it, and they were simply recognising that there was a potential risk. In terms of the American view, if you look at the comments that have been made by Admiral Keating over the last few days you will have seen comments from him specifically that the US did not see China as a threat in this part of the world.

GUYON You mentioned Admiral Keating and he said when he visited this week, that relations between the two countries were as close as they'd been for 25 years. Now I presume sending SAS to Afghanistan as being part of that closer relationship. Did you advise the government to send the SAS to Afghanistan.

JOHN No, we didn’t advise the government to send the SAS to Afghanistan, we were asked for advice in relation to that decision along with a variety of other departments as you would expect.

GUYON What was that advice?

JOHN Well the advice obviously is that Afghanistan is important to New Zealand, it's important that we continue our effort to stabilise that country, to avoid it becoming a platform for the terrorist threat, the PRT in Bamyan has been particularly has been particularly successful.

GUYON Exactly, so why are we sending the SAS in there to kill people?

JOHN Well because the ISAF which is the organising, you know the international force organisation operating under the UN mandate, has recognised the skills of the SAS and has asked for the SAS to be part of that component.

GUYON And was that Foreign Affairs' view as well?

JOHN Well I'm not going to tell you what Foreign Affairs' view was specifically in relation to that, but what I can say to you...

GUYON But with all respect though Secretary, you are the advisor on foreign policy, you’ve got New Zealand going into a combat situation, surely you can tell the public whether our chief advisor on foreign affairs, your department supported that decision.

JOHN Well I suppose putting it in context at five weeks into the role, with a myriad of things coming down the pipe as you have said, over that period, I want to be careful to make sure that I'm representing these things correctly Guyon. So from my point of view what I will say to you in relation to Afghanistan is that the SAS was a capability that was recognised as being extraordinarily skilful and useful by the ISAF, and from New Zealand's point of view it's important that we see Afghanistan stabilised, and that we complete or work to complete the work that we've done over so many years so far.

GUYON There's been a lot of warm words about strengthening of ties between the United States and New Zealand, but you have in the past celebrated the distance in some respect, that we have with the United States, in face a couple of years ago I quote you you said 'it is the fact that New Zealand is not as closely aligned with the United States that gives us real opportunity to add value to Australia and the way we work with them in the Pacific and other parts of the world. Should we maintain some distance from the United States?

JOHN Well I think in fact that speech was focused mainly on people who said that the Australians wanted New Zealand to just be a clone of them, and they wanted to sort of drag everything out of New Zealand that was good, and what I was saying to them is in fact from New Zealand's perspective and Australia's perspective, the difference between the two countries made us more effective, and that’s we should in that context celebrate the difference.

GUYON Sure, and some would argue that we're losing that in our bid to get closer with the United States and with Australia.

JOHN Well no I don’t accept that at all, I don’t think that there is any agenda on the part of either Australia or the US to drive out that difference, I think as I've just said that the reality New Zealand is different that we have some different relationships, we have some different skills, is a pivot that can make us useful to those countries moving forward.

GUYON Just before we leave it, can I ask you as you say only a few weeks really into the job, how will you measure your success in this role?

JOHN Well I think I need to measure it in terms of the overall success of the New Zealand economy, in terms of our success in positioning the New Zealand economy for a dynamic future, and in the number of exporters and other agencies, who are actually engaged on the international stage driving that success. I'm also going to measure it in terms of our diplomatic outreach and our aid outreach and the platforms that we're able to lay in that way for the trade agenda that we need to establish.

GUYON Alright, that’s pretty much all we've got time for, but thank you very much John Allen for coming in and joining us on Q+A this morning.

JOHN Great pleasure Guyon, thank you.

ENDS

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