Peters takes the shine off ministry’s halo
It may surprise many, but Winston Peters has a pretty good reputation within the public service. He works hard to get resources and respect for the people beneath him – particularly at his beloved Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) – and it pays off.
That kindness to Mfat bureaucrats was on full display yesterday as Peters spent most of a speech to the press gallery praising their work doing the tough work of getting thousands of Kiwis trapped overseas home on repatriation flights or through consular assistance.
But within that praise Peters slipped a line he knew would light up headlines – a grenade aimed squarely at the Ministry of Health, with which NZ First is understood to have clashed at times.
After mentioning criticism that the Government had been ‘‘captured’’ by the ministry, Peters revealed that its officials had made an extraordinary suggestion in late March which had been rejected by the Cabinet: to stop New Zealand citizens and permanent residents returning home.
‘‘The Ministry of Health recommended a total shutdown of the border, including to returning New Zealanders. From its health perspective this was understandable and appropriate advice. But the Coalition Cabinet rejected that advice because it was and is inconceivable that we will ever turn our backs on our own,’’ Peters said.
It’s no surprise that Cabinet rejected the suggestion. Shutting down our borders to our own people isn’t just extreme – it’s illegal. The right to return home is endorsed in both domestic and international law.
It would be one of the biggest diplomatic no-nos in the book, as it has the potential to make people stateless. It would also be politically impossible.
But the sheer ridiculousness of this proposal doesn’t quite explain why Peters decided to reveal it to the public.
Officials make silly suggestions sometimes. You want them to have big imaginations when writing policy papers, which can then be tempered by the more politically astute minds in the Cabinet. Usually we in the media and public don’t get to see any of those suggestions, unless we get pretty lucky with an Official Information Act request, and even with those the ‘‘free and frank advice’’ provision allows some of the most colourful stuff to be redacted. We just get to see the shiny finished product that everyone agrees upon.
Peters decided to change that yesterday, and did it just half an hour before the Ministry of Health’s top bureaucrat, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, was due to come onstage for his 1pm presser.
Bloomfield, one of the more beloved and recognisable figures in the country these days, had to spend 10 minutes of the conference explaining to journalists why exactly he had recommended a policy that would breach the human rights of hundreds of thousands of Kiwis. His argument made logical sense – the ban would give the country some time for full quarantining to be set up, as it eventually was – but no political sense.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stood beside him and attempted to douse the fire, saying there was no Cabinet disagreement on the issue – that it was simply an idea suggested and summarily rejected. (This didn’t really chime with what Peters had said earlier, that it was an idea that was ‘‘seriously respected’’.) Both made the point that this fact would probably come out anyway when the Cabinet papers concerning this matter are released.
Peters’ intervention served as an important political signal. He wanted to make clear to the many people on the political Right, who think the Government has been overly deferential to the Ministry of Health, that it had actually rejected its advice once or twice. And he wanted to show people on the other side of the ledger why you can’t just blithely ‘‘follow the science’’ and do exactly what your officials recommend.
It worked a treat.