Comments

Dear Terence, Thank you for your article. I found it interesting that most of New Zealand's aid will be directed to climate finance. During my internship at The Borgen Project, our team and I have advocated for extending the Foreign Aid budget in the U.S. by petitioning Congress and spreading awareness. Recently, we were able to help increase Foreign Aid spending from less than 1% by 6% (through the FY23 Omnibus Appropriations Bill). Advocating to increase aid for the U.S., and as a New Zealander myself, I understand how an aid budget of just 1% is worth improving. As a story idea, do you believe that studying the New Zealander's perception of foreign aid (how much it is, and what it is directed to) that you would be interested in writing about? On our website, we have noted that most Americans overestimate that the foreign aid budget sits at 25%. Do you think advocacy about increasing the funding is needed, as well as discussing the variety of issues NZ can assist with? Thank you for reading. Here is a link to our website, where we advocate for federal budget expansion and spreading the word about ending poverty across all nations. https://borgenproject.org/foreign-aid/ Thank you! Emily

A great piece explicitly laid out, highlighting the progressive invention of newer and clever ploys to maintain political power via MP numbers and abuse of positions. Apparently, Democracy is not guarded by the rule of Law, rather numbers tend to dictate political outcomes.

Thanks for sharing such an excellent blog, Karen: wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New year 2023

Fascinating. I hail from an island of the southwest coast of Manus Province. The people are still working on rebuilding 100 homes destroyed in 2017 from a tornado. These homes would not have met any building codes that insurance companies need to determine the levels of insurance premiums they would charge to replace homes and business etc. My question is how are insurance companies going to establish the building codes they will use in the Pacific and are we talking urban or rural areas considering that when disasters strike, it is often the rural areas of the pacific that bear the brunt. In Australia insurance companies still grapple with insurance claims from flood victims. Claimants have some knowledge in navigating insurance claims, some understanding of what their insurance covers, the premiums they need to take and why. Insurance for insurance sake won't cut it for the Pacific. Custodians of insurance knowledge must be explicit in their communication with the Pacific peoples. We must know what it is, who needs it and why and, the cost of having or not having insurance. They must own the process, be shareholders and investors of insurance companies be participants in designing the insurance policies.

Lots of interesting information and insights here, Sharon. Thanks for your work. As you state in the article and in responses the data raises as many questions as answers, so there's lots still to unpack. It's important members of the development community do so dispassionately without bringing prejudices into the mix. With this in mind we really need comparable analysis that looks at the community sector and NGOs and also multilaterals. There's a shared interest in having sufficient diversity of suppliers of all types to maintain the benefits of competition (which are real and substantial, even if anathema to many in the sector). Diversity, of course, should be a means to the bigger goal of greater development impact. Maximising the number of providers would actually be detrimental to that goal because not all providers are of equal quality. Into the bargain, an under-resourced DFAT struggles to manage existing contracts, grants and relationships. If these are multiplied so are its difficulties in managing strategically for results. Multiple dilemmas. No easy answers. Here's another dilemma that many wont want to contemplate. One of the reasons for market concentration, despite untying, is that profits in the industry are typically low. Quite frankly I wonder why quite a few of the firms - and individuals - bother, as the returns are often less than 5%. The answer usually is that the companies and in particular the people who work on them are just as committed to development as others in the sector. Imagine that, people in the private sector who also have values and who are motivated by a whole range of factors not only profit maximisation. Turns out there's less black and white and plenty of shades of gray.

Hi David, thank you for your comment. Yes, Papua New Guinea has been sending women as seasonal workers for a long time, and actually has a high rate of female participation. At the time in question that this data was taken (mid-2022), over 100 women from PNG were working in Australia and New Zealand, mostly on the SWP, and that number has scaled up significantly since then. But, this graph is looking at female participation as a percentage of Papua New Guinea's domestic population; as participation is relatively low, and PNG's population is high, the number is low, and appears as 0.0% on the scale we are using. The actual number is that 0.004% of Papua New Guinean women are participating labour mobility. Hope this helps to clear up the data in that graph.

Inaccurate and flawed information. While the graph showing female participation from other countries may be correct, it isn't for PNG. PNG has been sending female workers to Australia for 4 or 5 straight years now. My wife and her sister, Joyce and Roselyn Lawrence worked on a farm with 3 other ladies in Brisbane signed on by MADEC (employment company) in 2019. I am not sure how it could be possible that PNG did not send any female at all under the Seasonal Labor Program till 2022 to be given a 0.0 % rating.

Great blog. Three points worth stressing I feel: 1) The civil servants at the time were arguably stronger both in terms of the security of their positions and perhaps also technically. The great KT in Treasury and Loko in IRC were huge assets. 2) Sir Mek was unflinching in terms of taking on corrupt practices, whether they be within the development partners, as we saw with the World Bank, or within the Government as we saw numerous times with Ministries like Trade in particular. This ultimately cost him his position. 3) At the time Treasury and Finance were one agency. With planning and IRC also under the remit of the Ministry of Finance. Today there is an unwillingness to take on the issue of corrupt and or poor spending practices. This task has been made worse by the botched computerisation of the PFM system and the splitting of Treasury and Finance. So that task today is arguably a bit more difficult from an administrative point of view but as you point out the economic situation back then was actually worse.

Well articulated article. Thanks Matthew for your contribution.

Important reflections on a tumultuous time. Sir Mek’s legacy of prudent reform and financial stability is being preserved for hopefully several more generations.

Thanks for sharing your blog with us, such a really amazing blog

I totally Agree. Approved Emplyers are money focused and dont care about worker wellness. Each Pacific Natation need to step up and create roles for wellness ofgficers to protect their own people. I'm glad someone was bold enpough to pint the dark secrets. Any Approved Employer in the Lockyer Valley need to take caution to care for the wellness needs of their workers. Organisations are rising up to ensure accountable measures are in place. Approved Employers need cultural competency training, it's a two way lane.