Good riddance

Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe is finally over:

The controversial Saudi sheep deal been shut down, which the Government says will save about $1 million.

[...]

But Trade Minister David Parker said the deal has now been axed.

"We're not spending any more money on its installation or delivery," Parker told 1 NEWS.

"We have managed to bring it to an end, saving the last million dollars or so. But I'm afraid the other $10 million that has already been spent has been flushed down the drain by the prior Government."

Good riddance. The sheep deal was dodgy on so many levels - a Minister lied to Cabinet and the New Zealand public, fearmongering over a lawsuit which didn't exist in order to pay a bribe in the hope of influencing a foreign government. That's not how our government is supposed to work, and its not how we're supposed to do business. And it makes me very glad that its architect, Murray McCully, a deceitful micro-managing control-freak, is out of our politics for good.

The gift that keeps on giving

Remember sheepgate? Murray McCully's amazing plan to avoid a nonexistent lawsuit by bribing a Saudi businessman with $10 million of public money? McCully may be gone, but his legacy lives on: now, MFAT is being sued over his corrupt deal, by an NZ company angry they didn't get their cut:

An Auckland-based company has started legal proceedings against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) in the High Court, the Herald can reveal.

That raises the possibility of more costs related to the controversial, and still unfinished, project.

The company, Laurium Asset Management, helped put the Saudi businessman who now owns the agrihub, Hmood Al Khalaf, in touch with the National Government.

However, it was left out of the eventual deal, and later wrote to Mfat asking why its intellectual property had been used as the basis for the tender.

It's "intellectual property" presumably being the idea of paying a bribe. But I'm not sure you can claim IP over a crime (OTOH, I'm sure the US Patent Office would grant a patent for it - they do for everything else).

Being sued by National's bottom-feeders adds insult to injury, and hopefully it'll be thrown out of court. If its not, MFAT should dump the liability where it truly belongs: with its corrupt former minister.

A bribe predicated on a fantasy

When Murray McCully wanted to bribe a pair of corrupt Saudi businessmen, he got it past Cabinet by telling them that the money would prevent a lawsuit. He then told the New Zealand public during a TV interview that he had been advised by MFAT that there was a real threat of such a suit. Naturally, he lied: MFAT never gave him any such advice:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not provide legal advice to the government on the risk of being sued by a disgruntled Saudi Arabian businessman, documents reveal.

The admission that no legal advice on the lawsuit threat ever existed directly contradicts comments in 2015 by then-Foreign Minister Murray McCully that the ministry had taken advice on the issue.

McCully lied to the public and he lied to Cabinet in order to corruptly spend millions of dollars of our money. If he was still a Minister, he should be sacked. Sadly, his retirement means he will escape any accountability for this. But at least he's out of politics for good.

Good riddance

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has announced that he will not stand at the next election.

Good riddance. McCully is one of New Zealand's worst ever Ministers, with a history of control-freakery and corruption stretching back to the Shipley years. In his current term as a Minister, he has vindictively cut funding to aid agencies which criticised the government, awarded contracts corruptly and without tenders, corruptly created a position to get an opposition MP out of Parliament, all while boozing his way around the world at our expense. More recently there's the festering sore of his corrupt Saudi sheep deal, which saw him lie to his Cabinet colleagues in order to bribe a Saudi billionaire.

New Zealand will be better off for his resignation. Unfortunately, given the way these things usually work, National will probably add insult to injury by giving him an honour on the way out.

McCully lied to Cabinet

The Auditor-General has released their report into Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe. While they find it was not a bribe in the tightly criminal sense of whether Murray McCully is liable for prosecution under the Crimes Act (of course he's not - he was the briber, not the recipient), they're very clear that it was a payoff to Hmood Al Ali Al Khalaf to achieve a diplomatic objective (i.e. a bribe in the ordinary sense of the word). They criticise the contract under which the money was paid for deliberately obfuscating this objective and hiding the fact that it was first and foremost about resolving a diplomatic dispute. But most importantly, they find that Murray McCully basicly lied to Cabinet in his papers promoting the deal:

I found some significant shortcomings in the Cabinet paper, including that it:

• did not clearly explain that the Al Khalaf Group would own the goods and services costing the New Zealand Government $6 million;
  
• did not identify how the $10 million figure was arrived at (a figure that has since risen to $11.5 million);
  
• signalled the risk of a claim against the Government based only on the $20-$30 million figure that the Cabinet paper said was suggested by the Al Khalaf Group (there was no assessment by Ministry officials of the substance of that legal risk);
  
• did not include any analysis about whether there were any other potential obstacles to the signing or ratification of the free trade agreement, apart from the concerns of the Al Khalaf Group about the export of live sheep or the assertion by the Gulf Cooperation Council that this was the only obstacle to the free trade agreement; and
  
• identified that New Zealand exports could double to $3 billion in five years if a free trade agreement was signed with the Gulf Cooperation Council, without including any analysis.
  

Based on these significant shortcomings, I am concerned at the lack of robust analysis and the quality of information that was provided to Cabinet on this matter.

Cabinet approved the money based on these obfuscations by McCully. The Auditor-General deliberately refuses to comment on the quality of Cabinet's decision, but any flaws in it can only be the fault of the poor information supplied by McCully. More importantly, Cabinet Ministers owe their colleagues a duty of candour in Cabinet discussions. McCully has violated that duty. He should resign as a result.

Finally, the Auditor-General criticises the government for its secrecy on this issue. The public are owed transparency on what the government is doing with our money and what (if anything) has been achieved. They failed on this front as well - primarily due to the efforts of McCully to hide the fact that he had given poor advice and effectively bribed a foreign government. That's not acceptable either, and something he should be held accountable for.

A bribe predicated on a lie

Remember sheepgate? Murray McCully bribed a Saudi businessman with $10 million of public money, supposedly to avoid a $30 million lawsuit. But it turns out that that lawsuit didn't exist:

The Nation has obtained Cabinet papers from 2013 showing Mr McCully claimed the Government faced a $20-30-million lawsuit if it didn't resume livestock exports.

[...]

However, Mr Al-Khalaf's business partner George Assaf has told The Nation they had no intention of suing the New Zealand Government.

"We have never taken any action or thought about this. We may get a legal opinion but we had no appetite, no ambition to take any Govt to court let alone NZ," he said.

He also appears to have been trying to secretly resume live sheep exports, in contravention of New Zealand law.

Which means that McCully appears to have misled Cabinet - and Parliament. Isn't it time he was held responsible for this, and sacked?

McCully doesn't change his spots

Oh dear - Murray McCully is mired in another corruption scandal:

Earl Hagaman, the founder of Scenic Hotel Group, gave $101,000 to the National Party in September 2014. In October, Scenic Hotel Group announced it had the contract for the Matavai Resort on Niue - a contract awarded by a trust which was appointed by Foreign Minister Murray McCully to oversee the resort.

Mr McCully told RNZ National that there was no link between the donation and the contract and he had not been involved in awarding the contract. That was decided by the Niue Tourism Property Trust after running an international and competitive process. Mr McCully appoints the trustees for that but said he was not involved in the decision. "I can tell you that I had no involvement in the appointment process, conducted purely by the trustees and commercial management they appointed.

No link? Yeah, right. From another Minister, it might be believable that this was all some dreadful, terrible-looking coincidence. But from Murray McCully, a determined micromanager with a history of dodgy dealings and outright corruption, its simply not. The Auditor-General needs to investigate, and if there's even a hint that McCully had anything to do with it, the contract must be voided and prosecutions brought. We can not allow Australian-style corruption and kickbacks to take root in our government.

As for Hagaman, he shouldn't have donated. You can do business with the government, or you can donate to political parties, but you simply cannot do both - at least not if you want to avoid any perception of corruption. By donating when an important decision was being made, Hagaman has irrevocably tainted it in the public eye. And he really has no-one to blame for that but himself.

Another bribe

Back in May, we learned that Murray McCully had given a Saudi billionaire $6 million plus regulatory concessions in a naked effort to bribe him into removing his objections to a free trade agreement. It was a corrupt deal, an outright bribe, which pissed all over our good reputation as a nation which doesn't do that sort of thing. But rather than cleaning up its act, and forswearing future bribes, the government is planning to give him another $2.5 million:

The government is about to spend more than $2.5 million of taxpayers' money building an abattoir for a disaffected Saudi businessman.

The kit-set abattoir is part of the Government's $12m attempt to appease him.

It has already given the influential businessman, Hamood Al-Ali Al-Khalaf, $4m and has flown 900 pregnant sheep to his farm - nearly all the lambs subsequently died.

Mr Al-Khalaf has opposed New Zealand getting a free trade deal in the region.

And he'll no doubt keep opposing it as long as the government keeps paying him millions of dollars a year not to - because that's the incentive they're setting. But its also simply corrupt, and something New Zealand shouldn't be doing. And if Saudi Arabia is so corrupt that a billionaire can dictate their foreign policy and demands baksheesh to do so, they're probably not the sort of country we want a free trade agreement with anyway.

Dodgy as hell

How dodgy was Murray McCully's Saudi sheep bribe? So dodgy that he instructed the Saudis to avoid any mention of "compensation" in their invoices as that would involve lawyers [evade trialwall with incognito window]:

Foreign Minister Murray McCully wanted to set up his deal over the Saudi Arabian farm so lawyers and bureaucrats would not be involved.

He did not want the payments to the Al Khalaf Group called “compensation” for the losses they suffered as a result of New Zealand’s ban on the export of live sheep for slaughter.

And his aides were busy instructing the Al Khalaf Group what wording to use on their invoices even before the Cabinet had approved the project.

[...]

The report quoted Mr Assaf as saying that if the Government also proceeded with the MoU “the issue of compensation would therefore be less costly.”

It goes on: “The Minister noted that he would not want any financial contributions to be treated as compensation as this would involve a plethora of lawyers and bureaucrats. Rather he would prefer an investment in a partnership.”

McCully told the Saudis to invoice him before Cabinet had approved the expenditure, and told Cabinet the spending would be "for services set out under our contract". In other words, he cut a deal without consulting his Cabinet colleagues, then repeatedly deceived them about the purpose of millions of dollars of spending.

In a functional democracy, McCully would have been forced to resign for this. But under National, he'll probably get a knighthood. A "higher standard of government"? I think not.

The sheepgate files

The government dumped the documents on Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe last night, and its revealed the deal was dodgy from start to finish. Firstly, that "legal advice" the government had which showed that they were exposed to a claim of up to $30 million in damages for refusing to allow live sheep exports? It turns out that it came from the Saudis, not from the government's lawyers. In other words, it was "legal advice", but a try-on. Secondly, the Auditor-General had significant doubts about the legality of the scheme (which is going to be interesting if they now investigate it). As for Treasury, they opposed it from the beginning because it was "not within scope of existing appropriations", violated Cabinet spending guidelines and because it was "not clear from the paper what the $10 million committed is being used to purchase". And when things went wrong and the sheep died, John Key was instructed to lie about it.

So, just to make that clear, Murray McCully spent $10 million outside of his appropriation and possibly unlawfully purchasing fuck knows what from a dodgy Saudi billionaire. It looks like a bribe, it smells like a bribe. When are we sacking him?

Today's sheepgate revelations

The government's "defence" of Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe has been to blame Labour, alleging that it promised to resume live sheep exports with Saudi Arabia and then changed its mind. But today in Question Time, it turns out that the opposite is true: it was Murray McCully who raised Saudi expectations. The transcripts aren't online yet, but you can watch the details here; McCully admits that he had met with Brownrigg and Al Khalaf's business partner George Assaf to discuss the resumption of the live sheep trade, and that he promised to "look seriously at resolving the live trade impasse". The government then turned around and renewed the export prohibition order - so you can see why they were upset.

More interestingly, it appears that former National Party President Michelle Boag has her dirty pawprints all over this, was involved in the negotiations, and may have suggested the bribe. So it looks like this goes beyond just McCully.

A self-inflicted threat

Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe was predicated on the threat of legal action. According to the Cabinet paper authorising the deal,

Saudi partners would have preferred to enter discussion on the basis of seeking compensation for commercial loss as a result of government decisions (and indicated that they had received legal advice suggesting they pursue a claim for between $20-30 million)

It nows turns out that that "legal advice" came from the New Zealand government:

James Shaw: Did any of his Ministers suggest to Mr Al Khalaf and his associates that they sue the Government of New Zealand?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, I cannot speak for the other Ministers—I have never asked that question—but I know I certainly did not and I would be surprised if they did.

James Shaw: Why then did Brownrigg Agriculture in a letter dated November 2011 to Murray McCully say that Mr Al Kalaf will be looking “to seek commercial redress, as indeed suggested by your Government as a last resort option for him .”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot answer that question because I was not privy to those conversations...

So we have the government paying money to a Saudi businessman to forstall a lawsuit suggested by the New Zealand government. The question is, did McCully suggest it as a way of opening Cabinet's pockets, or did someone just say "so sue us!" in response to Al Khalaf's outrageous claims?

Time to ban exports for breeding too

When New Zealand originally banned the export of live animals for slaughter, it was driven by animal welfare considerations (and concerns about how rich European and North American customers would respond to them). The trade was cruel, and what happened to the animals at the other end was even crueller. But the trade in animals for breeding was allowed to continue, despite it using the same cruel ships, on the basis that it wasn't as bad.

Murray McCully's sordid Saudi sheep bribe blows that out of the water. Yes, they airfreighted 900 pregnant sheep to Saudi Arabia, so the trip was nowhere near as stressful. And then when they got them to the other end, the lambs died:

High numbers of New Zealand bred lambs on a controversial demonstration farm in the Saudi Arabian desert have died soon after birth.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, which is running the operation, said it was not responsible for animal welfare at the farm, which is intended to showcase New Zealand agriculture.

The Government flew 900 pregnant sheep to the Saudi farm late last year as part of an $11 million deal with the farm's owner, Hamood al-Ali al-Khalaf, whose anger over the cancellation of live sheep exports was preventing a free trade deal with the Gulf states.

By December, the lambs were being born and promptly began to die. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise could not confirm exactly how many had died but described it as "high losses".

According to One News' Heather du Plessis-Allan, the fatality rate was 75%, with some lambs dying of starvation. That's about fifteen times higher than the death rates in New Zealand, and its an animal welfare nightmare. But NZTE seems to be trying to wash their hands of it because

the welfare and treatment of the lambs at the demonstration farm were matters for the Saudi farmer Mr Al-Khalaf

Bullshit. NZTE exported them, and they are morally responsible. And what they're responsible for here is an animal welfare disaster.

Quite apart from showing what a crazy idea McCully's sheep bribe was, this also casts doubt on the entire breeding export industry. And we can't let New Zealand exporters continue to ignore it. We simply cannot permit animals to be exported into conditions where they will suffer more than they do on a New Zealand farm. And if farmers aren't willing to guarantee that, we cannot let them export at all.

Stinkier and stinkier

Murray McCully's "facilitation payment" to Saudi businessman Hmood Al Ali Al Khalaf was already looking pretty stinky - less like a business deal and more like an outright bribe. And now its gotten even stinkier. Firstly, the supposed "independent audit" of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise's tender for developing the Saudi agri-hub? It didn't happen. Instead, the tender - which miraculously resulted in the contract being awarded to a company owned by Al Khalaf - was "independently" audited by MFAT, the same people who wanted to give Al Khalaf lots of money to make his objections go away.

And secondly, the legal threat which McCully claimed justified the deal? McCully has changed his mind about that:

One News has an email in which Mr McCully denies there was ever a legal threat.

In an email dated 13 May, reporter Heather du Plessis-Allan asked Mr McCully's press secretary, "Was the Minister made aware of a threat by Hmood Al Ali Al Khalaf or his business ventures to take legal action domestically over the ban of live sheep exports?"

The following day the press secretary responded "I have just been able to speak with the Minister the answer is no."

So, McCully told Cabinet there was a legal threat to unlock the money, then told journalists there wasn't when they started sniffing around. Either he lied to his colleagues, or he deliberately tried to mislead the media. Either is sacking offence, and either way he should go.

Action from the Ombudsman

Back in July, I sent an OIA to Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully seeking the date and time a particular email from the Malaysian embassy was opened by his office. The response was the most bullshit OIA response I have ever received. Naturally, I complained to the Ombudsman. While I had expressed a dismal view of the effectiveness of this course of action, based on the regular timelines complainants experience, I'm pleased to report that in this case, the system appears to be working. I had a number within a few days, and two days ago I was informed that my complaint was being handled urgently and that McCully had been told to turn over all information to the Ombudsman by the 8th. So, there's a chance that we might see an answer about how slack the Minister was before the election.

We may also see more than that; Newstalk ZB (and no doubt a horde of other journalists) sought a wider range of information from McCully, and were similarly rebuffed. Their complaint is also being investigated urgently. And hopefully that will mean more answers before the election, so the Minister 9and the PM who appointed him) can be held accountable.

The most bullshit OIA response ever

On July 30, we learned via Question Time that Murray McCully had allowed an email informing him that the Malaysian government was not waiving Muhammad Rizalman’s diplomatic immunity to sit unread in his mailbox for an indeterminate amount of time. I immediately fired off an OIA seeking one simple fact: the time and date that that email was opened and read. Today, at 16:45 - dump time - I received the response from McCully's office. And it is the most bullshit OIA response I have ever received.

The request has been refused under sections 6(a) (international relations), 9(2)(a) (privacy), 9(2)(g)(i) (free and frank advice), 9(2)(ba)(i) (subject to an obligation of confidence), and 9(2)(h) (legal privilege). The problem? None of these grounds can possibly apply:

• 6(a) doesn't apply because the information sought simply doesn't relate to foreign relations. It relates to one action (or rather, inaction) of a New Zealand government Minister. The content of the email could be covered by that ground, but its the metadata that has been asked for, and some of that metadata (and the existence of the email itself) is in the public domain.
  
• 9(2)(a) does not apply because the information sought is not personal information, but information about an official action (or inaction) of a government Minister. Actions performed in public office are by definition not "private".
  
• 9(2)(g)(i) does not apply because the information sought is purely factual, not an expression of opinion.
  
• 9(2)(ba)(i) does not apply because there is no obligation of confidence involved. Again, this is an official action (or inaction) of a government Minister, not information collected from an outside source.
  
• 9(2)(h) does not apply because the information sought simply is not subject to legal privilege. The date and time the Minister deigned to read his email is not legal advice, and it is an abuse of the term to pretend that it is.
  

And this applies whether the email was opened and read by the Minister or his staff. So what's going on? Sadly, the point here isn't to lawfully withhold the information; instead its just to delay the inevitable release by throwing the kitchen sink at it and hoping that the requester is intimidated (I expect that its also a form response given to everyone requesting information on the topic, regardless of their actual request). And the sad thing is, it will probably work. I'll complain to the Ombudsman, of course - but it will take a week to even get a number, and a month before an investigator can take time to actually look at it (and then years to get a result). By which time any chance of electoral accountability for the Minister's apparent laxness will have passed. The system simply does not work when it most needs to. And that is a deeply depressing thought. Update (3/9/2014): contrary to my dismal expectations, the Ombudsman is handling the case urgently, and I may get a response before the election.

Murray McCully's taxpayer-funded pissups

Today was the last day of Parliament before the election, so naturally the government used it as cover to dump the quarterly Ministerial expenses reports. The media picked up pretty quickly on Tim Groser's $300 dinner of foie gras, (endangered) Chilean Sea Bass, and a $95 bottle of Central Otago pinot noir, perhaps because it was on the first page. meanwhile, I've been wading through Murray McCully's receipts - all 197 pages of them. McCully's a serial offender, with a habit of putting vast quantities of booze on the taxpayer's tab. Sadly, he hasn't changed a bit. Right there at the beginning (on page 6) we have him billing us to drink Absolut Vodka in his lonely hotel room. And it all goes downhill from there...

Ministers have developed several tricks over the last few years to hide dubious expenditure. Last time, they simply "lost" detailed receipts for expensive dinners, perhaps because they knew what we'd think of what they showed. McCully has a new strategy: charging it all to his room. His hotel bills are full of large charges for Hotel restraunts, far more than normal. And we know he's not eating in them, because he frequently presents receipts for boozy delegation dinners on exactly the same day. He's also not dining with his staff, because they're billing their own meals separately.

In one case (p. 24), he racks up more than US$1,000 of "bar/restaurant" charges in a single night, with no explanation to the taxpayer of what its going on.

In another case (in Trinidad), he spends twice as much on booze as he does on his room, but calls it "accommodation expenses".

He's also started dumping his drinking bills on MFAT, as this receipt shows.

The meals that we do see show a large amount of expenditure on alcohol. In Singapore, he has some crab-burgers and $200 of booze, and calls it a delegation "dinner". At Millbrook Resort in Queenstown he catches a quick "lunch" with his PPS: $71 of food, and $172 of wine.

And remember, we're paying for this.

This isn't acceptable. No private business would let its staff drink on expenses like this, and we shouldn't either. If McCully wants a piss-up, he can pay for it out of his $268,500 salary.

(I should note that once again, other Ministers were overwhelmingly responsible in how they spent public money. With the exception of McCully, transparency appears to have significantly improved Ministerial behaviour).

Unbelievable

Why didn't Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully act sooner in the Malaysian diplomat case? Because he couldn't be arsed reading his email:

DAVID SHEARER (Labour - Mt Albert) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Did his office receive an email at approximately 5.00 pm (New Zealand time) on 22 May 2014 advising that the Malaysian Government had refused to waive diplomatic immunity in Muhammad Rizalman’s case; if so, when was that email opened?

Mr SPEAKER: Before I call the Minister, my office has been advised that this answer may be longer than normal.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs): As the Minister has already said publicly, one staff member from his office was copied into an internal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade email on 22 May. The email reported that the diplomat had returned to Malaysia in light of a decision by Malaysian authorities to decline a request for a waiver of immunity. The staff member did not open the email when it was received, as she was travelling at the time with limited communications capacity and was not the usual contact point for such reports. The email was identified in June, when correspondence was reviewed in the office.

Coleman refused to answer a subsequent question about exactly when in June the email was opened, from which you can draw your own conclusions about how late it was.

Naturally, the "independent" inquiry into this won't be looking at the Minister or his slackness. Instead its a strapped chicken aimed firmly at MFAT officials, who will be blamed unfairly for their Minister's failure to do his job. But its crystal clear who is at fault here, and who the public should be holding to account.

The Jones appointment II

In my earlier post on the Jones appointment, I noted the lack of any formal advice. There were no briefings, no policy development documents, no cabinet papers, no advice to the Governor-General to make the appointment, not even a formal appointment letter. This was surprising, so I queried it, asking for a list of those documents that had been withheld. The response:

no documents, of the type you specified (formal briefings, cabinet papers or appointment letters), were withheld.

A further query confirmed this, and also elicited this:

Head of Mission/Post roles are not considered by Cabinet or APH.

This is utterly unbelievable. The Cabinet Manual requires that "all but the most minor public appointments" must be submitted to Cabinet. The detailed guidance on this makes it clear that all appointments made "by the Governor-General on the advice of a Minister, or by the Governor-General in Executive Council" (such as the appointment of a head of mission / post ambassadorial role) must go to Cabinet and the Cabinet Appointments and Honours Committee (APH) (it also has a helpful outline of the appointments process which McCully has completely ignored). So what am I to conclude? There seem to be three options:

• McCully's SPS is lying to me about the documents that exist and the process followed (unlikely);
  
• McCully violated the Cabinet Manual by not consulting his Cabinet colleagues on a senior appointment. But even then the Minister should have signed an appointment letter; or
  
• Jones' position isn't a head of mission / post and did not need Cabinet approval, and McCully ordered MFAT to employ him in violation of the State Sector Act.
  

At this stage, I think its time for some real journalists to start asking some questions to get to the bottom of this.

Update: added note about the existence of an appointment letter for option 2.

The Jones appointment

Back in April, Shane Jones announced that he would be quitting Parliament to take up a position as a "Pacific Economic Ambassador", which the Herald noted had been "created by the National Government especially for him". Like many people I was curious about this, so I filed an OIA request seeking information on the role and the appointments process. That OIA was filed on 28 April. Last night - after a mere 41 working days - I received the response. The full documents are up on DocumentCloud here (if that doesn't work, someone also requested it through FYI. We all got the same response).

Some key observations:

• The position was dreamed up by McCully. On January 28, Billie Moore - apparently his press secretary - sent an email to senior MFAT staff relaying the Minister's views on the need for an ambassador to "move the region forward" on fisheries issues. The Minister was "keen for feedback from the Ministry on how you see this issue", but clearly didn't like what he heard: all immediate response was redacted as "free and frank advice", while the Ministry's promised "considered view" was not included in the release.
  
• The job was created especially for Jones. On March 3 Moore tells MFAT CEO John Allen that "the Government has decided to appoint an Ambassador for Pacific Economic Development". Allen's response is "I am seeing Shane tomorrow evening. I will let you know how I get on".
  
• There was no job description until May. You would expect a formal role whose creation had been discussed with the Ministry to have produced one during the advice process. Instead MFAT staff were scrambling to produce one in the days after Jones left Parliament.
  
• There is no information whatsoever on the appointment process: no mention of other candidates, interviews, or shortlists. It appears that McCully simply decided, King Dick style, that Jones should be employed, and so it happened. As previously noted, this is a total violation of public service values, and an unlawful exercise of Ministerial power.
  
• There is a stunning lack of formal advice. No briefings. No policy development docs about the need for the position. No Cabinet papers (and there should be one for an appointment at this level). No salary information. No formal advice to the G-G to make the appointment. Not even an appointment letter. Clearly some of this material must exist - the government is incapable of functioning without it - but for some reason it has been withheld. Given how ordinary such documents usually are, either it shows how blatantly political and corrupt this appointment was, or it is another example of McCully's obsessive secrecy.
  

When I first heard of this appointment, I commented that if McCully had offered Jones a briefcase full of cash rather than a specially-created high-paying job to resign, we'd call it what it is: Corruption and bribery of member of Parliament. From what I've seen in this release, I stand by that.