Foreign Minister Peters names five new diplomats — including his own advisor
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced five new diplomatic appointments, including his senior ministerial advisor and former chief of staff Jon Johansson as Ambassador to Sweden.
The announcement, made on 7 September 2026, names Johansson alongside four career officers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT): 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 (RNZ).
Johansson taught at Victoria University of Wellington for 17 years before serving as Peters' chief of staff and then senior specialist ministerial advisor across two separate stints: the 2017–20 parliamentary term and the current 2023–26 term. His appointment to Stockholm is the only one of the five that goes to someone from outside the foreign service.
The other four appointees are all career diplomats with substantial posting histories. Waetford joined MFAT in 2009, served as deputy head of mission (the second-in-command at an embassy) in Brazil in 2015 and in Argentina from 2016 to 2019, and most recently worked as lead advisor in the Trade Policy Engagement and Implementation division. Roberts has held senior leadership roles at MFAT since 2017, including as senior official for trade agreements with the EU, UK, UAE, and PACER-Plus (a Pacific regional trade agreement), and served as Acting High Commissioner in Kiribati. Wong has been with the ministry since 1999 and is currently policy and practice unit manager in the Security and Organisational Resilience division; his previous postings include Consul General in Chengdu and Shanghai, and service in Hong Kong, Singapore (seconded 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 the Dublin embassy in 2018 and leading negotiations on the free trade agreement with the UK (RNZ).
The Johansson appointment carries a particular history. In 2016, Peters criticised what he called the "brorocracy" of diplomatic appointments, after speculation that former Speaker David Carter would replace former Speaker Lockwood Smith as High Commissioner to Britain. At the time, Peters said political appointees to diplomatic posts should be "the absolute exception" and that he would recall appointees home if his party held the balance of power after the subsequent election (RNZ).
These five appointments continue a pattern of rolling diplomatic postings announced through Beehive press releases across Peters' current term as Foreign Minister. Earlier announcements include three appointments in August 2025 (Joanna Kempkers as Ambassador to France, Greg Andrews as High Commissioner to Fiji), seven in December 2025 (including Wendy Matthews as High Commissioner to Canada and Olivia Owen as Ambassador), and two in February 2026 (Georgina Roberts as High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea and Aramiro) (Beehive; Beehive; Beehive).
The broader context here is the tension between Peters' 2016 stance on political appointments and his decision a decade later to send his own advisor to Stockholm. His criticism at the time was directed at the practice of political figures, particularly former Speakers, being appointed to plum posts ahead of career diplomats. Johansson's profile differs from those earlier cases in that he has served across two parliamentary terms in senior ministerial advisory roles rather than holding an elected or parliamentary office. Whether that distinction satisfies the "absolute exception" standard Peters set for himself in 2016 is a judgment that will likely be tested in the press gallery and in Parliament. What is clear is that four of the five appointments announced this round went to career MFAT officers, with Johansson the sole external pick.
The spread of posts also reflects New Zealand's current trade and security priorities. Burgess goes to the UAE, a jurisdiction he has already worked on from Wellington as senior official for the Gulf trade agreement. Waetford's Latin American experience, built through postings in Brazil and Argentina, maps directly to the Colombia role. Wong's extensive North and Southeast Asia experience, including Chengdu and Shanghai, is being applied to Timor-Leste. Roberts takes the Niue posting with a Pacific background that includes the Kiribati acting role.
For those working in and around the Beehive, the appointments round is also a reminder that the diplomatic pipeline under this minister has been notably active, with at least seventeen heads of mission named across five separate announcements since August 2025. Peters has used each release to foreground the career credentials of the appointees, and this round is consistent with that approach, with one notable exception.
