Peters appoints own advisor Johansson as Ambassador to Sweden

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has named his senior ministerial advisor and former chief of staff Jon Johansson as Ambassador to Sweden — the only non-career diplomat among five appointments announced on 7 September 2026. The other four (Waetford, Roberts, Wong, Burgess) are all MFAT officers. In 2016, Peters called political diplomatic picks "the absolute exception" and criticised the "brorocracy" of such appointments.