Russell Palmer of RNZ
The foreign minister has made five new diplomatic appointments – including his own ministerial adviser and former chief of staff Jon Johansson as the Ambassador to Sweden.
The other appointments are Tāne Waetford as Ambassador to Colombia, Melanie Roberts as High Commissioner to Niue, Stephen Wong as Ambassador to Timor-Leste, and Brad Burgess as Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.
Johansson taught at Victoria University for 17 years, and served as Winston Peters’ chief of staff then-senior specialist ministerial adviser in the 2017-20 and 23-26 parliamentary terms.
Peters described him as a “political scientist specialising in political leadership” saying he had “worked the past quarter-century at the intersection of New Zealand politics, media, public service and foreign policy”, before acknowledging his roles as Peters’ staffer.
“In these roles, Jon provided advice to the foreign minister on a broad range of policy issues and participated in the minister’s engagements with counterpart foreign ministers all around the world.”
In 2016, Peters criticised the “brorocracy” of diplomatic appointments after speculation that former Speaker David Carter – who New Zealand First MPs had clashed with – would replace another former Speaker Lockwood Smith as High Commissioner to Britain.
Carter later rubbished the idea, but Peters told media at the time political appointees should be “the absolute exception” and he would recall appointees home if his party held the balance of power at the subsequent election.
Jon Johansson has been appointed Ambassador to Sweden alongside new diplomatic postings to Colombia, Niue, Timor-Leste and the UAE. Photo: Wiki Commons
Waetford began working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) in 2009, has served as deputy head of mission to Brazil in 2015 and to Argentina from 2016-2019, and is now lead adviser in the Trade Policy Engagement and Implementation division.
He has helped negotiate trade deals including with the UK, Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, United Arab Emirates and India, as well as FTA implementation, outreach and Māori trade engagement.
Roberts has previously been Acting High Commissioner in Kiritbati, and has held senior leadership roles at MFAT since 2017 – most recently as senior official fo trade agreements with the EU, UK, UAE, and PACER-Plus.
She previously worked in international development and humanitarian roles in Nigeria, Afghanistan, Nepal, the Philippines, and the United States, including with the World Bank, USAID and Action Against Hunger.
Wong is currently the policy and practice unit manager in MFAT’s Security and Organisational Resilience division, having started working for the ministry in 1999.
He has served as Consul General in Chengdu and in Shanghai, with previous postings including Hong Kong, Singapore (secondment to the APEC Secretariat), Jakarta and Myanmar.
Burgess has led New Zealand’s consular and crisis response operations since 2022, and was previously New Zealand’s first resident Ambassador to Ireland, opening New Zealand’s Embassy in Dublin in 2018 and leading negotiations on the free trade agreement with the UK.
He has previously been a senior negotiator including on the CPTPP, the upgrade of New Zealand’s agreement with China, negotiations with the Pacific Alliance grouping, and was seconded to the United Kingdom’s Department for International Trade after Brexit.
This story was first published on rnz.co.nz