Analysis: Buried down a press release about something else entirely, National has just changed the playing field. A week after Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walters said Labour aspired, in the indefinite future, to increase development aid, National has done the opposite.
The party’s health spokesperson, Simeon Brown, has announced National would cut development aid by $431.2 million over the next four years. Yes, the health spokesperson.
The cut is first mentioned as a bullet-point in the fifth paragraph of a media release headlined “More medicines for Kiwis at home”. It promises that a re-elected National government would increase Pharmac’s medicines budget (a victory for the pharmaceuticals lobbyists) and this would be done by cutting overseas aid.
“We will largely pay for it by reducing foreign aid and associated administration costs by 10 percent, while fully protecting aid to the Pacific,” Brown says.
First, let’s just acknowledge one of the more genuine attempts from any party in recent weeks to account for the source of new spending. Rather than just promising vaguely to pay for the plans out of future operating allowances, National has made it very clear where the money’s coming from. That’s welcome.
Second, however, we should be clear that setting this up as a choice between New Zealanders’ health and foreigners’ wellbeing is a false dilemma. Yes, a party in government may raid one pot to top up another, but to present the two issues as linked is perilous.
That’s because, third, this is how National has just dramatically broadened the playing field. It’s widened the field to enable a running game that goes beyond New Zealand’s borders. This seeks to make the election not just about domestic health, cost of living and economic management (where it’s struggling) but about Kiwis v the world.
‘The idea to cut foreign aid during one of the most uncertain global times in history is both desperate and dangerous.’
Winston Peters, NZ First
To that extent, it may be buying into a very nationalistic MAGA-style world view. But it’s not the only country to follow in Donald Trump’s footsteps: Canada, the UK, Germany and France have all cut aid as well, mostly to increase military spending.
“New Zealanders are generous people, and we’ll continue to play our part in the world,” Brown insists. “But National believes more of New Zealanders’ hard-earned money should be spent here at home, caring for Kiwis fighting cancer and other serious illnesses, rather than being sent offshore.”
‘Millions of dollars gone’
A background document makes it clear what National is targeting. Just as National Party ministers quoted anecdotal examples of “wasteful spending” in science grants or local government, before overhauling those sectors, so too it’s citing examples of International Development Cooperation spending that its strategists believe New Zealanders will struggle to swallow.
“Millions of dollars have gone towards, among other things, smart agriculture systems in Latin America and the Caribbean, workshops with indigenous farmers in Patagonia, and installing livestock emissions equipment at universities in South Africa,” the backgrounder says.
Expect to see these examples pulled out on the hustings, starting with Tuesday’s TVNZ leaders’ debate between Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins.
Climate science in Africa? Smarter agriculture aid for the dreadlocked farmers of Jamaica? And supporting lasso-slinging indigenous farmers in Patagonia – where even is that, anyway? The message being, these are people a very long way away from the day-to-day concerns of New Zealanders.
The backgrounder doesn’t cite examples of aid spending that New Zealanders might support, such as humanitarian and recovery funding channelled to Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Timor-Leste.
NZ First leader Winston Peters has been quick to hit back on his preferred medium of X. “The idea to cut foreign aid during one of the most uncertain global times in history is both desperate and dangerous.”
Peters, as Foreign Affairs Minister, protected the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from public sector-wide baseline spending cuts. And he made it very clear that he’d go to the campaign hustings, if necessary, to protect that funding again.
Well, here we are. “It is irresponsible for National to jeopardise the relationships we have in the very markets we need to grow our economy,” he says today. “This will take us back decades in foreign affairs and have reverberations that the National Party has either naively disregarded, or worse, have no ability to comprehend.”
On past precedent, Christopher Luxon would struggle to get these cuts past Peters in post-election negotiations. But this announcement isn’t about post-election negotiations; it’s about winning enough votes to get to those negotiations in the first place. If National’s promise then falls by the wayside, so be it.
National argues that MFAT’s budget has near-doubled to $2b a year, and its staff numbers have risen by more than 34 percent. And that the aid cuts amount to only a 10 percent reduction to the $4b-plus New Zealand would otherwise spend over the next four years.
But two-thirds of that is Pacific aid, which National is ring-fencing. To achieve its target, it would have to cut a massive 33 percent out of New Zealand’s aid to South-East Asia and the wider world.
To put that in perspective, Australian National University aid expert Dr Terence Wood tells me that Australia’s Tony Abbott government made 15 percent cuts to foreign aid. It faced an international backlash. “If we don’t cut aid to the Pacific, that means that the bulk of our cuts are going to fall on the neediest countries globally,” he tells me.
Baseline cuts to foreign affairs ministry
On top of that – and this bit wasn’t in the media release at all – National wants to impose catch-up baseline expenditure cuts on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to make up for the cuts that Peters protected the ministry from. That’s another $45.6m, taking the total close to a cool half billion.
Professor Regina Scheyvens, from Massey University, says New Zealand’s overseas development aid had already fallen to just 0.27 percent of gross national income last year – to gut it further would be a blow.
She asks, does this mean New Zealand steps back when tens of thousands of people are affected by a devastating flood in Nepal? Does it mean reducing support for organisations such as the WHO, which combats diseases such as measles and polio?
‘The difference is New Zealand is already great, so we don’t have to make it great again.’
Todd McClay, National Party
Scheyvens echoes Brown. “New Zealanders are generous people,” she says.
But her conclusion is different. “We care about people facing poverty, disasters and preventable disease, regardless of where they live. Development assistance is also part of being a responsible international citizen. Meeting our international commitments and being seen as a reliable partner matters to New Zealand’s reputation and relationships, including with countries with which we trade and negotiate. Aid is essentially a form of soft diplomacy.”
‘The same outcome through a reduced aid budget’
National’s foreign affairs spokesman is Todd McClay, though you wouldn’t have known it from the policy announcement. I spoke with him half an hour ago.
He’s backing the cuts, of course. He rejects the idea that cutting international aid comes straight from Donald Trump’s MAGA playbook. “The difference is New Zealand is already great, so we don’t have to make it great again,” he says.
McClay laughingly acknowledges the examples the party’s chosen of wasteful aid spending in the Caribbean and Patagonia.
“Look, we have a very important role to play on the world stage, and we’re going to take the responsibility seriously. All governments of the world are balancing their obligations as international citizens with what they need to deliver at home, and we’ve just made the judgment call that we think we can deliver the same outcome through a reduced aid budget.”
But when I put it to him that this is the same fund from which New Zealand provides humanitarian and disaster support in Ukraine, and Nepal, and Timor-Leste, he starts making exceptions to the blanket rule.
He acknowledges the relationship with Timor-Leste, where five New Zealand Defence personnel died on peacekeeping duties. “You know, Timor-Leste is probably a very special case given its proximity, and you’re right, many years of history between our two countries. But actually, we should always have a look and say, are we getting value for money?”
Or Ukraine, where six or seven Kiwi aid workers and international legion volunteers have died volunteering in the war: “You would go and look at particular areas of the world. How strategic it is, how important it is.”
McClay continues: “It will be a matter of being sensible and going through this. We said we ring fence the Pacific because it’s our closest neighbours. That’s where our biggest obligation is.
“Then, it’s just a matter of working through the rest of what New Zealand does and finding economies, both in what we spend, but importantly the way we deliver the aid and the development assistance.”
He plays down the clash with Winston Peters, saying the Government has a proud record of growing the economy through its trade deals.
“But everybody has to look at bottom lines. I think most New Zealanders who need cancer treatment or medicines would say it is reasonable for us to have a look at you know prioritisation and how we can drive the aid dollar harder whilst providing them with the medicines they need.”
McClay is in effect New Zealand’s top trade negotiator. So I ask, does his party leader have the negotiating chops to get this past Winston Peters, if given the chance to do another coalition deal? “I think that coalition negotiations have to wait until the day after the election,” McClay says. “Every party is putting out you know the things they think are important, today.”
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