8:18am

The Prime Minister says he called Winston Peters to his Beehive office on Wednesday night where he told him he expected better political judgement from his foreign minister.


By Jo Moir of RNZ


Christopher Luxon said his coalition partner "acknowledged he had made a mistake" during that meeting after Peters' office released discussions
between the pair to the NZ Herald following an Official Information Act request.


The political spat between the two leaders broke out over the release of
emails that show Luxon within days of the US-Israel war in Iran starting, wanting to move the Government's position to showing "explicit public
support" for the US.


But Luxon's office said the emails released only show Peters' office's characterisation of the Prime Minister's views.


"These emails mischaracterise the PM's position. As you'd expect, it is the PM's job to always challenge the advice he receives and, in this case, he sought to test New Zealand's position against that of Canada and Australia,"
a spokesperson for Luxon said in a statement to RNZ.


"The public statements made by the Government reflect the PM's position. If they didn't, they would not have been made.


"We were surprised to see Winston Peters' office release internal discussions like these to the media, as our office was not consulted on this.


"The decision to release these discussions to the media clearly put politics ahead of the national interest.


"The PM would expect Mr Peters to show better judgement after more than 40 years in politics."

The Prime Minister met with the Foreign Minister on Wednesday night "to make that point and Mr Peters acknowledged he made a mistake", the spokesperson said.


In a public written statement, the same word was used by both Luxon and
Peters, prompting questions about why New Zealand hadn't joined other like-minded countries, such as Canada and Australia, in using the word "support".


In the documents first released to the NZ Herald there are emails from staff
in Peters' office detailing it's the foreign minister's view that New Zealand does not "move towards explicit support, like Australia/Canada have
expressed".


"He sees value, from a foreign policy perspective, in walking the careful
line we established yesterday via the written statement and in his stand up - which neither condemns nor gives explicit support to the US action", the
email stated.


"I think we're going to need to try and come up with a drafting solution - which gives the PM clearer lines to use" but ultimately doesn't substantively change the government position, the staffer wrote.

On Thursday morning RNZ contacted Peters for an interview, but a spokesperson said he had nothing further to add.


In late February the United States and Israel launched its attack on Iran,
and just a few days later, on March 2, Luxon was on RNZ's Morning Report for his weekly interview.


He was asked whether New Zealand supported the strikes, but Luxon would only
go as far as to say the strikes were acknowledged.


The email exchange and suggestion New Zealand shift its position came the day after the RNZ interview and a post-Cabinet press conference where Luxon, in both instances, struggled to clearly articulate the government's position on the US-led war in Iran.

The Prime Minister declined an interview with RNZ on Thursday morning.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: S.W.A.T.S BBS Telnet swatsbbs.ddns.net:2323 (63:10/102)