Trevor Louden has done more digging on the use of the NZAID funded NGO travel fund administered by the Council for International Development. The full analysis is interesting but what jumped out at the team here at The Hive was this grant:
Professor Jane Kelsey ARENA Our World Is Not For Sale Meeting – Oslo, Norway September 2002 $2,000
Our World Is Not for Sale is a worldwide network of organizations; activists and social movements committed to challenging trade and investment agreements that advance the interests of the world’s most powerful corporations at the expense of people and the environment.
Jane Kelsey is a well known leftist activist. ARENA is an anarchist/socialist organisation.
This was not just a meeting. It was a mass action against the World Bank conference being held at the time.
Use of NZAID money to fund Kelsey to events such as this is not acceptable. This is further evidence of the lack of controls on NZAID expenditure. The Government and Opposition should be deeply worried about this. The "best Foreign Minister since Brian Talboys" should be particularly worried as this is happening on his watch.
