NZ Aid

Denis Welch blogs an interesting reminder:

With regard to the argument over foreign minister Murray McCully’s decision to pull the semi-autonomous NZAid program back under the umbrella of Foreign Affairs, that tinny sound you can hear is Labour being hypocritical in its attacks on the move.

In the course of research for my book on Helen Clark I interviewed Matt Robson, the Alliance MP who was disarmament minister and associate foreign affairs minister 1999–2002. He told me that he and Clark ‘clashed mightily over the setting up of NZAid, to the point of warfare. She backed Foreign Affairs keeping the aid division with only a few minor changes.

So the change was pushed through by the Alliance, and resisted by Labour. Just like Kiwibank which Labour opposed at first.