Sir Lockwood Smith: Former High Commissioner to the UK on the sacking of Phil Goff

A former High Commissioner to the UK says while they feel bad for Phil Goff, Winston Peters was right to sack him. 

The Foreign Minister stepped in to fire Goff over comments made questioning Donald Trump's understanding of history at a public event. 

Sir Lockwood Smith was in the role from 2013 to 2017 and told Mike Hosking those kinds of comments aren't acceptable. 

He says the High Commissioner acts as the voice of the New Zealand Government and so needs to be very careful. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now among the job Carnigh this week as our former
High Commissioner to London, Phil GoF who went along to
A Q and A and got a little bit cute.
Former UK High Commissioner Sir Lockwood Smith is with this, Lockwood,
very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Good morning mate.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Do you feel sorry for Phil?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Yeah, of course I feel sorry for him, But I
think you know, Winston Peter's horrible, Winston honorable, Winston Peter's
had no choice after what had happened.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Could you, in isolation if you saw that question just
as a piece of video, gone immediately. No, that's not right.
That's across the line, and obviously so or is Helen
Clark right? It's it's a line call.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, there are a couple of things make is the
High Commissioner of the United Kingdom is really the voice
of the government, and the government's position in relation to
the United States is critically important, and so the High
commission has to be very careful in representing the government.
And the second thing is that the High Commisioner the
United king shouldn't really be common on matters taking place

(01:02):
in the United States, and so diplomatic boundaries are really
important in the role and interestingly, I think because I've
been speaker for four years before I went over there,
I had no difficulty then moving away from political thinking
if you.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Like, that's a very good point. What sort of writing
instructions when you get the job, despitely, I mean Phil's
experienced your experience, what sort of writing instructions do you
get around the specifics of what's on, what's not, and
how to watch yourself and conduct yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, actually, you know, even though I did a three
weeks sort of program in Wellington prior to my appointment,
they didn't really say you can't do this, you can't
do that. You can't because they expect you to be
sensible in the role. And I think where you know,
Phil Goff may have heard a little is normally a
Chatham House there. You know, Chatham House rules apply, and

(01:59):
normally any common So I'm not attributable to whoever might
have made them, but I think where film made a
mistake was that something as potentially inflammatory as that was
always going to sort of leak out type of thing.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Doesn't why it was a better sure? Does it go
to whether we should have Korea politicians or career diplomats,
and which is better or not in these high profile jobs,
particularly and was.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
In question Mike. When I was in the UK as
High Commissioner, my wife was voted UK New Zealand of
the Year. The UK government appreciated my work so much
they asked Boris, asked me to stay involved after I
left the UK, and I've served advising them on trade policy,
agriculture policy. I helped get the New Zealand Free Trade

(02:45):
Agreement in place. I helped get the UK into CPTPP.
And the benefit why I was able to do that
is those senior politicians over there respected my knowledge as
a former Minister International Trader, former Minister of the Culture,
and so the fact that I'd had those experiences was
actually hugely beneficial to New Zealand and it hasn't been since.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Interesting. It seemed like a weird gathering. I don't know
if you've seen the video, but it seemed like a
you know, sort of half a dozen randoms in a room.
Do you do that as a lot as a high commissioner?
I thought it was all, you know, cocktails.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
No, I didn't do that sort of thing much at all,
To be honest, I did a lot of serious work
around the Commonwealth served on a committee helping members of
the Commonwealth that had gotten into trouble. I did a
lot of work talking at conferences around the UK, giving
addresses on trade and agriculture policy, so I was more
heavily involved. I didn't do the diplomatic circuit, if you like,

(03:41):
much at all. I didn't go to the cocktail parties
much at all. I was so focused on trying to,
I guess, influence the way the UK was thinking about
agriculture policy and post Brexit, of course, you know, they
were very keen to keep the involved.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
It does say something about, really, and you saw it
in Winston Peter space yesterday. It does say something about
the tremendous sensitivity that a small country like us, at
the bottom of the world has got to be cognizant
of at a time of extraordinary tumult. I mean, these
really are interesting times, aren't they.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Oh, fair comment, and our relationship with the United States
is just too important for a loose comment to cause problems,
you know, And I think you know, if if Phil
Goof's comments have been criticized by the Foreign Minister, I
don't think that would have been enough. I think, you know,
I've got to give the right of Winston Peter's credit.
He moved decisively and that should help minimize any damage.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Good stuff, So like what nice to talk to you
have a very good weekend to Lockwald Smith, the former
High Commissioner of Course and former Speaker of the House.
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