By JAMES GARDINER
The timing of the announcement of Dell Clark Higgie's new job could not have been better - or worse.
A few hours after Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff said Ms Higgie would be New Zealand's first counter-terrorism ambassador, a bomb blast outside a Jakarta hotel killed 13 and injured
150.
If that did not sheet home the potential for New Zealand and its near neighbours to be affected by terrorism, nothing would.
But Ms Higgie, a 49-year-old career diplomat, has not been prepared to discuss her new role or the latest bombing.
Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry spokesman Brad Tattersfield said she did not wish to be interviewed.
"It's not that she's trying to run for cover or anything," Mr Tattersfield said. "She's easing into the job and she doesn't know enough about just how it's going to evolve yet to be able to talk with any sort of authority about it."
In January, Ms Higgie spoke at a conference in England on the role of diplomats. Her topic included the demands made on diplomats in dealing with the media.
At the time she was Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium, Denmark and Luxembourg, based in Brussels, a post she had held since 1999.
"You have to be pretty bloody good to do that job," said one former high-ranking diplomat.
A British member of the European Parliament, Giles Chichester, said after meeting Ms Higgie that she was "a tall, feisty lady whom I would not wish to upset".
Although she scarcely made the headlines in the job, Ms Higgie did alert her colleagues in Wellington when a Belgian television advertisement showed a rugby haka and a team of Scotsmen lifting their kilts in response. News of the ad upset some tangata whenua.
Ms Higgie joined the ministry in 1979 with law and arts degrees from Victoria University and a masters in law from Cambridge.
She worked in the legal division before a posting to Ottawa, returned to head the human rights unit and was deputy director of the United Nations and Commonwealth division before spending five years in the Washington embassy as a political counsellor.
Terence O'Brien, a former Ambassador to the United Nations and current fellow of Victoria University's strategic studies centre, described Ms Higgie as a well-performed officer.
Her legal background would be useful in the role, he said.
"It's evidence you're taking it seriously. I think they've made a good choice."
* Email James Gardiner
By JAMES GARDINER
The timing of the announcement of Dell Clark Higgie's new job could not have been better - or worse.
A few hours after Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff said Ms Higgie would be New Zealand's first counter-terrorism ambassador, a bomb blast outside a Jakarta hotel killed 13 and injured
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