Foreign Minister's 'Absolute Exception' to Political Appointees Turns Out to Be His Own Adviser

Winston Peters has announced five new diplomatic appointments, and one of them is Jon Johansson, his former chief of staff and senior specialist ministerial adviser, who will now be Ambassador to Sweden. Peters describes Johansson as having worked the past quarter-century “at the intersection of New Zealand politics, media, public service and foreign policy,” which is one way of saying the man has spent twenty-five years standing near power and has now been placed inside it.

This sits awkwardly next to Peters’ own 2016 position, when he argued political appointees to diplomatic posts should be “the absolute exception” and promised to recall them if his party held the balance of power. He now holds considerably more than the balance of power, and the exception has arrived on schedule, wearing a familiar face. The other four postings, to Colombia, Niue, Timor-Leste and the United Arab Emirates, went to career MFAT staff, which rather highlights the one that didn’t.

Nobody disputes Johansson is qualified. Seventeen years teaching at Victoria University is a real qualification. It is simply also the case that the absolute exception, when it eventually turned up, turned up in the Minister’s own office. Stockholm awaits its new ambassador, appointed on merit, coincidentally.