Thursday 13 August 2026
The New Zealand
Taxpayers’ Union can reveal through Official Information
Act requests
(https://assets.nationbuilder.com/taxpayers/pages/13/attachments/original/1786404942/COP_30.pdf?1786404942)
that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry for
Primary Industries and the Ministry for the Environment
spent $303,026.78 sending 17 staff to the 2025 United
Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém,
Brazil.
Key facts:
-The Ministry for the
Environment sent 2 staff for a total cost of
$56,706.78.
-The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent 14
staff for a total cost of $221,596.
-The Ministry for
Primary Industries sent 1 staffer for a total cost of
$21,724.
-The average cost per night of accommodation was
$1,310.38 per person.
-MFAT flew six staff business class
to the conference.
Taxpayers’ Union Investigative
Lead Rhys Hurley said:
“Each agency says it scaled
back its delegation compared to COP 29, but with four more
delegates, costing nearly $80,000 more in taxpayers money
than last year, the numbers don’t lie.”
“The irony
of six highly paid foreign affairs officials flying business
class to this ‘green’ gathering wont be lost on anyone.
Are these the flights the Minister of Foreign Affairs was so
determined to save from budget cuts?”
“At an average
of $1,310 each per night on hotels, apparently saving the
planet doesn’t come cheap. That’s five times the $260
nightly cap for MPs staying in first-world Wellington or
Auckland.”
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“Zoom is apparently good enough for
working-from-home days, but when there’s a taxpayer-funded
trip to Brazil on offer, only face-to-face will do. With
COP31 only 12 weeks away, ministers should be telling a few
more bureaucrats to put their passports back in the
drawer.”
NOTES:
The full Official Information
Act response is available here –
https://assets.nationbuilder.com/taxpayers/pages/13/attachments/original/1786404942/COP_30.pdf?1786404942
Our
COP 29 release can be found here –
https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/bureaucrats_burn_226000_on_400000m_cop29_junket
The
New Zealand Taxpayers’
Union is an independent and membership-driven
activist group, dedicated to being the voice for Kiwi
taxpayers in the corridors of power. Its mission, lower
taxes, less waste, more transparency, is supported by
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