NEW MOONS FOR SAM: Becoming Kiwi--Life of a New Zealand Diplomat.

• Author: Hoadley, Stephen

NEW MOONS FOR SAM Becoming Kiwi--Life of a New Zealand Diplomat

Author: Peter Hamilton Published by: Mawhitipana Publishing, Waiheke Island, 2021, 407pp, $35.

His Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade associates know Peter Hamilton as the diligent, able and agreeable colleague who rose steadily through the ranks to become deputy secretary. I know Peter Hamilton as the lead negotiator of the New Zealand-Singapore free trade agreement whom I featured in a book on that successful initiative. Many others know him through his postings as a diplomat in Suva, Ottawa, Geneva, Apia, Berlin and Singapore, the latter three as chief of mission.

Now a wider circle can learn more about Hamilton, and about New Zealand's diplomacy and diplomats, through his lucid and detailed autobiography. The first of many insights offered by his memoir is that a prospective diplomat is shaped long before taking up any formal overseas post. A diplomatic persona evolves from attitudes and experiences, and learning of skills, as a youth. Self-knowledge and self-confidence moderated by tolerance and engagement with people and events moulded the future diplomat. Sound secondary schooling at Hamilton Boys High introduced Hamilton to foreign classmates and to current international affairs. He recalls as a teenager listening to Radio Peking's English news programmes among other current affairs sources, a somewhat unusual initiative among his contemporaries.

Hands-on international experience followed, thanks to a year in Tonga with Volunteer Service Abroad. Subsequently, mentored by legendary Professor Jock Asher, Peter completed a master's degree in German at the University of Auckland and won a DAAD scholarship for study in Germany. When finally appointed in 1977 as a junior policy officer in the then Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hamilton was already well equipped to serve New Zealand effectively.

This short review cannot sate but only whet the reader's appetite, so I offer only a few morsels herewith. Mature readers will remember prominent diplomatic corps figures with whom Hamilton served in the 1970s and 1980s; these included Bryce Harland, Derek Leask, Maarten Wevers and Kate Lackey. And later prime ministers Robert Muldoon, David Lange and Mike Moore. Of Harland he recalls 'No one in the Ministry taught me as much about diplomatic trade craft as Bryce ... I respected him but did not particularly like him ... He often took my written work [and] discarded it as inadequate...