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In the speech from the throne on 9 December 2008, the Government stated that its driving goal is “to grow the New Zealand economy in order to deliver greater prosperity, security, and opportunities for all New Zealanders”.
Raising productivity has been identified as one of the major economic challenges to achievement of this goal and raising New Zealanders’ living standards over the medium term. It has been shown[1] that improved international connections are important for lifting productivity and long-term economic growth.
The Ministry is the Government’s chief adviser on international relations and the changing global environment. It is also the steward of New Zealand’s network of overseas staff and posts, and the coordinator of NZ Inc[2] in other countries. The focus of our effort over the period of this Statement of Intent will be to pursue and support a set of international connections in support of the Government’s driving goal to raise productivity and growth. The activities prioritised under this approach will assist the flow of people, capital, trade, technology and ideas to New Zealand to build a more competitive resource base for the economy. Inter-agency efforts on a set of agreed international connections will encourage the development of domestic policy settings that target, attract and exploit the factors most likely to increase New Zealand’s competitive advantage and productivity. They will also encourage better use of New Zealand’s offshore resources to support New Zealand business in key foreign markets and countries.
The above strategy is a vital means for the public sector to help New Zealand lift its economic performance. It is even more critical at a time of global recession. The world is currently in its worst recession since the 1930s and when it ends, the international environment, attitudes, and relations among states will not be the same as we have known them over the past three decades. The challenge for the Government is to bring New Zealand through the recession in the best possible position to face the future. The core task for the Ministry is to manage the Government’s international relations in ways that contribute to bringing New Zealand through the recession and able to take advantage of the recovery. This is not a time for business as usual.
The three great challenges for the medium term are therefore to:
It is against this backdrop, that the Government has identified six priorities relevant to the Ministry’s work:
The Ministry will seek to deliver the Government’s priorities through its work in the international relations, security, trade, resource and development areas. These are reflected in four of the Ministry’s five long-term policy outcomes:
Outcome I is primarily aimed at the ongoing need for the Ministry to invest in the network of political and security relations that underpin our economic linkages. It is important to recognise that there are strong linkages between achieving the Government’s long-term economic objectives and maintaining strong and positive political relationships. An FTA with China could not, for example, have been achieved without a positive bilateral relationship as the size of the New Zealand market would not, on pure economic grounds, have warranted the negotiation from China’s perspective. The work of the Ministry frequently involves building the logic and momentum for engagement, and then pursuing positive relations using policies and activities delivered through the resources and outputs of our posts, policy divisions and partner agencies. This is frequently a long-run process taking years. It also draws on the contributions of other agencies whose own outcomes, in turn, are supported by positive bilateral relationships.
Outcome II reflects the Ministry’s direct contribution to New Zealand’s international competitiveness and is a long-term outcome shared with MED and NZTE. The focus of the Ministry’s work in this area is opening up access to new markets, preserving ongoing access to existing markets, removing other countries’ regulatory and policy barriers to New Zealand exporters in the form of tariffs, subsidies, and unjustified or unreasonable technical standards, and working with NZTE and other agencies to promote and develop new trade opportunities. The Ministry achieves its results in a variety of ways: engagement with the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the negotiation of bilateral or regional free trade agreements, direct representations to other governments, and supporting New Zealand business overseas. A major focus for the Ministry in response to the Government’s priorities will be working with NZTE to ensure more coordinated NZ Inc support for New Zealand exporters.
Outcomes III and IV deal primarily with the production of wider global outputs that affect the external environment in which we live and work as a nation. In a globalised world, New Zealand’s prosperity depends on the prosperity of the global markets in which we trade. But the prosperity of those markets depends in turn on their security, a stable external environment, and the rule of law. The Ministry plays a key role in defining and contributing to these global conditions. Examples to which New Zealand actively contributes include effective responses to security threats such as terrorism or internal conflicts, sustainably managing shared natural resources such as the global climate system or high seas fisheries, and, through NZAID, supporting the economic growth and prosperity of developing countries. One of the purposes of our engagement is to broaden the framework for dealing with international issues and to negotiate legal instruments through which to regulate the behaviour of states, especially on issues where we have direct national economic or security interests at stake, including where these intersect with those of our neighbours in the Pacific.
Decisions about what matters most to New Zealand’s future in a globalised world are not straight-forward. This is because our foreign and trade policy goals are interdependent – what New Zealand does in order to achieve one goal can either help or hinder our achievement of another. For example, the aim of international trade negotiations and the development of trade rules through the WTO is to increase the wealth of all countries and provide a level playing field for trade to take place. As a small country New Zealand benefits from these broader aims. Efforts to reduce climate change, through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, could have significant implications for New Zealand’s international competitiveness unless we work to ensure our concerns are registered and accommodated to the extent possible. The degree to which New Zealand contributes to these processes not only helps shape their overall outcome but also influences other countries’ views of us, and their willingness to accommodate our interests.
Outcome V reflects the Ministry’s role in providing consular services for New Zealanders abroad.
Within the first four long-term outcomes, the Ministry has identified specific medium-term outcomes and impacts that will contribute to the achievement of each of the Government’s six priorities above. These are set out in the Operating Intentions chapter where we describe what we will do and the results we are aiming for in each of these areas over the next three years. Annex 3 summarises how these results will help the Government achieve its priorities.
Additional information on the Ministry’s outputs can be found in the Information Supporting the Estimates for the Ministry’s two Votes. Annex 4 shows how each Appropriation in the Estimates supports our outcomes.
Across all our work we will focus on delivering greater value for money in the more constrained national fiscal environment.
The Ministry has identified a number of indicators to help us evaluate whether we are moving closer towards our intended results. The main focus of our work has been on measuring progress towards the series of short-term outcomes described in the Operating Intentions chapter. This is because these represent tangible incremental outcomes towards a long-term policy outcome. They are steps over which the Ministry has some ability to influence the desired outcome. For the period of this Statement of Intent, they are more readily measurable.
Achievement of a long-term policy outcome not only takes years but usually depends on more than New Zealand’s efforts to reach the goal. This is partly because the nature of much international work is incremental. It is often only in crisis or emergency situations that major shifts occur. Progress also usually requires the agreement or support of others. New Zealand is usually only one of many players (eg other countries or organisations) whose activities impact on the situations we are trying to change or improve. For example, measurable sustainable economic development in a South Pacific country may depend not only on New Zealand’s aid but also the capacity of the country to absorb and make good use of New Zealand’s and other donors’ assistance, as well as changing internal and external conditions. Nonetheless, the Ministry keeps its long-term goals in focus and regularly reviews and re-calibrates its activities to progress towards them. We can, in fact, point to examples of our interventions that led, directly, to the achievement of a long-term policy outcome after periods as long as 10 years.
We will measure our performance in achieving our short-term outputs against the performance measures set out in the Information Supporting the Estimates.
A major Government priority is to require agencies working offshore to cooperate more closely to leverage international connections and support New Zealanders engaged in foreign exchange earning activities, especially exporters.
The Ministry has a mandate to lead the Government’s engagement with other governments on behalf of a range of agencies that have significant offshore interests. The heads of our overseas posts have been given specific responsibility to ensure that the policies and activities pursued within a country are coherent with the Government’s overall priorities for that country. That process is supported by close cooperation onshore with a range of domestic agencies including those that have their own staff or operations offshore. The Ministry will work with other agencies over the next few months to develop proposals to achieve the Government’s objective of a more effective NZ Inc. This will involve developing proposals for more flexible and productive use of offshore resources.
The nature of the Ministry’s close working relationships with other agencies is described more fully in our Nature and Scope of Functions section.
[1] See New Zealand Treasury Productivity Paper (09/01) International Connections and Productivity: Making Globalisation Work for
New Zealand
[2] NZ Inc is used here to refer to New Zealand Government agencies staff that are stationed, on fixed-term assignments, in New Zealand
Government posts (Embassies, High Commissions, Consulates-General, Consulates, other New Zealand Government offices) for the
purpose of representing New Zealand’s external policies and/or delivering services on behalf of Government.
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