Nanaia Mahuta's message to Winston Peters: 'Culture matters'

Saturday, 9 December 2023

Nanaia Mahuta has a message for her successor as foreign minister, Winston Peters: “Culture matters”.

Not that Peters agrees. The new foreign minister campaigned against a central feature of Mahuta’s legacy, a greater embrace of te ao Māori within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat).

Mahuta was an unlikely pick for foreign minister after the 2020 election and, in a recent interview with The Post, she said the ministry found it difficult working with her throughout her three years in the job.

“I wanted to do things, I didn't want to just be ticking boxes, and the fact that I wanted to introduce an indigenous perspective to deepen our foreign policy tool kit, those were all new dynamics for Mfat,” she said.

“They felt a little bit challenged, internally challenged by working with a different personality and a woman also.”

Mfat was an institution that had predominately been “for men”, Mahuta said, and when minister she had sought to not only shift its culture, but to also be less reliant on the organisation’s view.

This meant insisting to Mfat chief executive Chris Seed that women progress into leadership roles and diplomatic posts not because of their gender, but through a broader consideration of what was needed for the job.

She said she insisted on bringing non-governmental organisations and civil society “into the whare” as Mfat developed policy to improve policy, particularly in the Pacific.

Mfat began a review of its Māori policy and capability in June 2020, when Peters was foreign minister under a Labour-coalition government. At the time, the Māori policy unit had four staff.

Under Mahuta, the unit expanded to have 16 staff across four teams covering Māori policy on issues such as trade and biodiversity, engagement with Māori outside Mfat, improving Māori capability across the organisation, and leading tikanga practice.

Mahuta said the Peters-era unit had primarily been focused on tikanga, or Māori customary protocol, but the ministry was receptive to increasing its indigenous perspective to the extent it would increase the opportunities for “New Zealand Inc”.

She said the “policy heft” was important for negotiating free trade agreements in the remaining 30% of the world New Zealand lacks deals, including India, the Middle East, and, in the future, Africa.

“Across all those new emerging fronts, culture matters.

“So I can't see why a minister would negate New Zealand's point of difference through culture to explore further commercial export trade opportunities.”

Peters blasted the bolstered policy unit on the campaign trail and, in an interview after his appointment, again criticised Mahuta’s efforts.

“You're dealing with indigenous people everywhere. So what on earth could that have possibly meant?

“To say you're going to push one group of people as a nation, as one country, again, over the rest does not make any sense to me at all.”

Despite this, Peters did not commit to slashing the Māori policy unit but instead would be considering “what is essential for the purpose of presentation of New Zealand offshore and what is not”.

But already, the ministry appears to have moved to accommodate its new minister. Stuff has revealed that before the final election result was confirmed, Mfat removed te reo Māori from the template for documents it sends to ministers.

“I'm disappointed in the decision,” Mahuta said, suggesting the CEO, Seed, had moved to “absorb heat” in anticipation of Peters becoming minister.

She said the value of including Māori in foreign policy had already been shown in the prime minister’s trade delegation to China earlier in the year.

'That added value and depth, and texture to what we're trying to achieve with China, which is a growth strategy.

“The message to our domestic exporters: we want to encourage exporters to diversify to other markets, but we understand that that will take time. So it's a 'China and'.”

Balancing US-China

The toughest task for any foreign minister is to balance the growing competition between New Zealand’s largest trading partner, China, and its historic security partner, the United States.

Mahuta said China had been a consistent presence in the Pacific for a long time, and the “challenge” was the United States’ lack of consistency in a region that needed confidence there would not be “any lunging from president to president”.

'The US are coming up to presidential elections soon, and you know, [President] Biden's having difficulty getting budgets across the table. So Pacific are hearing all of this and thinking, 'How certain is this commitment?’.“

And a major US-led development in the region - the Aukus security pact that will have both the US and United Kingdom provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines and associated cutting-edge military technology - also promises to challenge New Zealand.

Soon after the pact’s announcement, US officials suggested New Zealand might join a “second pillar” of the deal which involved non-nuclear technology. However, there were mixed messages from Labour Cabinet ministers about whether staunchly nuclear-free New Zealand would consider this.

Mahuta, who had appeared most cold on New Zealand participation in the pact, said Aukus was “not an agreement that we would participate in' but she remained comfortable with exploring the opportunities of the second pillar.

Yet, in contrast to former defence minister Andrew Little, who said it was only “realistic” that New Zealand would continue to work with its partners on defence technology, Mahuta said Aukus was not needed for New Zealand to access cutting-edge technology.

“You don't need Aukus to go into a multilateral set of agreements to explore what that opportunity looks like.

“In fact, northern European states were also kind of floating [questions of] how do small-to-medium nations explore some common objectives that are not necessarily solely defence related, but they enhance security opportunities.

“Exploring opportunities outside of the Aukus arrangements and those pillar two areas are entirely a plausible pathway to go down.”

Mahuta said in her meetings with US counterparts she did not feel a pressure to “pick a side” in the US-China competition. Some - including former trade minister Tim Groser - have said New Zealand increasingly faces such pressure.

“I don't think we should feel pressured, we don't have an FTA [free trade agreement] with the US and they're not about to give us one,” Mahuta said.

She said the US was faced with the same complex challenges, but “the stakes are higher”.

'They can’t extract themselves from the Ukraine-Russia situation, they are unwilling to extract themselves from the Israel-Gaza situation, although pressure has been brought to bear internationally on them and they are trying to find a way through there, and they can see what's happening before their very eyes is that there is a resetting [in global power].“

Pushing to recognise Palestine

Further developing New Zealand’s policy on the Israel-Palestine issue - before Hamas’ October 7 attack sparked the latest war in Gaza - was a goal of Mahuta’s during her time as foreign minister.

But she was not able to travel to Palestine as hoped; a potential trip was put aside as the election neared. She said she had been motivated by questions about why New Zealand had not recognised Palestine as a state.

'It's no secret that within the Labour Party in New Zealand, and the Australian Labor Party, there are very strong pro-Palestinian views, but not to the detriment of Israel,“ Mahuta said.

“I was just really trying to use the time that I had an office to try and understand and see what we might offer.

“I wanted to know, is there a way through … and then October the 7th happened.”

Mahuta said she believed the disproportionate death of Palestinian civilians in the conflict would create greater momentum toward a two-state solution.

'We're small country, we do what we must to voice our stance, and we can continue to exert a diplomatic pressure on friends and partners to do better as well.“