They have set sail on a 17 thousand k journey from San Fran to Sydney, currently 69 days through and well into the Polynesian Islands.  Go Well.

Check it out. Care of the NY Times.  Check the main Plastiki website here.

It is however a very difficult area.  It is young, under resourced and by its nature deals with disastorious situations.  NZ has previously maintained the noble goal of ensuring that our small contribution to the world of Aid is delivered effeciently and with the primary goal of poverty reduction.  Basically this means the money goes to simple things like providing clean water, safe accommodation, food. You know, all that stuff we completely take for granted.  This strategy has been widely praised and is inline with international best standards such as Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness that was signed in 2005. NZ has avoided much of the criticism and international scepticism that comes with aid from countries like the US and Australia who tie their Aid to their commercial and strategic interests.

New Zealand will now join those countries and make our AID programme responsive to our trade and political interests.  So first up we see NZ aid money been diverted to subsidizing flights to the pacific.  This is a fine idea and its great to be promoting NZ obligations to the pacific.  But lets be clear, this is money that would otherwise be helping people in the pacific deal with day to day issues of poverty.  Things like Maleria vaccinations, water pumps, grain, seeds…

Here’s two indepth articles recently published about this:

Josie Pagani:  If it’s not helping to reduce global poverty it doesn’t count as aid. 

Gordon Campbell: Murray McCully’s attack on New Zealand’s foreign aid programme