Source: Radio New Zealand
Across the term Winston Peters has been to 51 countries, spending a total of 201 days offshore. RNZ / Mark Papalii
You’d hardly know it, given how often he appears in the media, but Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has done some serious air miles this year.
He’s visited 31 countries on 12 separate trips, racking up 85 days offshore and 182 political engagements.
Across the term, he’s been to 51 countries (78 if you count repeat visits) with a total of 201 days offshore and 511 political engagements.
“It’s been exhausting,” Peters chuckled in his Beehive office during a sit-down interview with RNZ before the summer break.
“We’ve been flat to the boards and we are very pleased to be going to Christmas, but it’s been absolutely exhausting.
“We’ve travelled mainly at night, during the parliamentary breaks or when Parliament’s not sitting and as a consequence I spent half a year offshore.”
Victoria University of Wellington’s centre for strategic studies director David Capie said Peters’ travel programme was “extraordinary”.
“It’s a travel schedule that’s befitting the scale of the challenges that New Zealand is facing and the disruption we’re seeing in the world at the moment.”
‘We’ve got to regain our mojo’
Peters has been highly critical of the former Labour government’s efforts in his portfolio and said he had to make up for lost time.
“One hates to say this but I inherited a totally neglected portfolio where the then-Minister didn’t want the job in the first place, didn’t want to travel in the second place and despite that, the then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern thought it was of so little significance she pushed her into that job.
“As a consequence, there were so many countries that have never seen us for all those three years and that’s why it’s been so hard for us.”
Former Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Capie said former Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta was in a “difficult spot” in that she also held the local government portfolio when Labour was pushing its Three Waters scheme.
“Those are two portfolios that are pretty difficult to keep in balance, plus you had the Covid-19 border closures,” Capie said.
“In hindsight, New Zealand stayed home too long at a time when lots of the rest of the world was already getting out and talking about its interests and building those new connections. We were probably slow out of the blocks.”
Peters said New Zealand was no longer living up to its reputation and had to work hard to get its “mojo” back.
“We have a good reputation but it’s not the reputation that we once had, where we were regarded as a world leader.
“People couldn’t understand how we were. They couldn’t understand how a country so far away from its markets, comprised of a population the size of Manchester, was billing a country the size of the UK.
“They were amazed by that. That’s where we were in the ’50s. So here we go. We’ve got to regain our mojo.”
‘The curiosity effect’
Easily the country’s most seasoned politician, Peters (80) said he lived by some advice he got a while ago: “Winston, don’t act your age”.
The minister’s demanding travel schedule would tire most people, but Peters’ energy, charisma and experience clearly buoy him along.
“One of the great things about having some experience or having age, may I put it, is the curiosity effect,” Peters said.
“They always are curious, particularly Pacific leaders who say, holy hell, Winston, you’re still going and they’re not saying it in a nasty way – but they were running around kindergarten when I was starting.
“These guys are serious guys in their governments nowadays and the Prime Minister Marape from Papua New Guinea is always going on about it.”
Peters believed his work in foreign affairs was now drawing votes domestically.
“I’m pleased in this context that for the first time ever, foreign affairs is bringing votes back in New Zealand.
“It’s never happened in the past, but all of a sudden, people started to realise this is a very tricky and difficult world, and foreign affairs is – for the first time in my whole career, which has spanned since the late 1970s – this is the first time I’ve seen it bring in votes, because people realise this is serious and we don’t need amateur hour here.”
South America in his sights
While Peters would kick into election campaign mode proper sometime next year, he wasn’t slowing down on the travel just yet.
He planned on visiting Kiribati early in the New Year, and South America in Q1 where trade progress had “stalled for three decades”.
“I’m going to do my best to help Todd McClay get things going,” he said.
Peters said he had worked closely with both Trade Minister Todd McClay and Defence Minister Judith Collins this term as all three portfolios complemented each other.
Trade Minister Todd McClay. Pool / Henry Cooke
“We’ve tried to support the Minister of Trade to the maximum because we realise we’ve got to get this country’s trading relations in a far better, far more profitable state and that’s just hard work.”
Having pushed back against requests to cut his Ministry’s budget, Peters said every dollar spent in foreign affairs delivered dividends down the line.
“Those small economies that are doing magnificently well have done exactly that. They spent two and a half times on foreign affairs than we do.
“Ireland, Singapore and Croatia. Now Croatia’s got two and a half million people, two million less than us. They’ve got 86 posts. They know what they’re doing, where they’re going. There’s a lesson that’s for us, big time.”
Peters said foreign affairs would only grow more complicated and more important, so it was a portfolio that needed a lot of care and attention.
“We’re way out here in the South Pacific for goodness sake, we’re north of the penguins.
“Our isolation means we’ve got to go to it, flat to the boards, but there is some good news. I think there are exciting things happening… I think next year could be an exciting year, in foreign affairs and many other things.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand