Acute sensitivities at play over Goff and Peters' roles

Phil Goff and Winston Peters

While Foreign Minister Winston Peters was in Auckland complaining in a speech about the negative tendencies of some politicians, former Foreign Minister Phil Goff was at Parliament positively defending the unusual arrangements of Government involving Mr Peters.

Mr Goff, now Trade and Defence Minister, assured the foreign affairs and defence select committee this week: "I am not able to detect any problems that the new governance arrangement is creating."

That may be so, and it appears to be working, but there are still extreme sensitivities at play over Mr Peters' and Mr Goff's respective roles, particularly on the part of Mr Peters, about who does what and when.

Mr Peters, the New Zealand First leader, is a minister outside the Cabinet and represents the Government while professing not to be a part of it.

Mr Peters sought the Foreign Affairs post as part of his party's confidence and supply agreement with Labour.

Contrary to his stated plans not to attend either Cabinet or, more importantly, Cabinet committee where the real work is done, Mr Peters actually attends the external relations and defence committee chaired by Mr Goff, to put his own ministry's papers rather than relying on others to do it for him.

The sensitivity over the new arrangements was evident from the outset with the furore over Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer at his first outing with the reshuffled Mr Goff reportedly asking how the arrangements would work.

Losing Foreign Affairs should have come as no shock to Mr Goff: before last year's election Prime Minister Helen Clark had foreshadowed the fact that only two ministers would keep their portfolios in a major reshuffle, herself and deputy Michael Cullen. But Mr Goff appeared for some time to be in mourning over losing his much-loved portfolio.

But with three new related portfolios, Trade, Defence, and Disarmament and Arms Control, Mr Goff has the licence to stray frequently into the Foreign Affairs paddock.

At the select committee Mr Goff, while discussing the New Zealand's deployment to East Timor, was asked about the United Nations role there.

Mr Goff's response was that that was Mr Peters' responsibility - then proceeded to give his wide-ranging views on all matters regarding East Timor including the UN and Australia's intervention.

Mr Goff's recent trip to East Timor is a sensitive point.

Prime Minister Helen Clark had agreed that Mr Peters was to have been the first New Zealand minister to visit East Timor once the security situation had settled.

She had decided that because Mr Goff had been the first minister into the Solomon Islands after the recent crisis, Mr Peters could be first into East Timor.

Mr Goff, however, sought a change in the plan because rather than wait, he was keen to accept an offer of a ride by Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson from Singapore where they had both been at a defence meeting.

In the circumstances, it was not a change that anybody could complain about without seeming churlish.

But Mr Peters is said to have been seething about it when he learned about it in Vanuatu, where he was leading a 50-strong delegation.

Mr Downer had been first in for Australia, and were Mr Goff still Foreign Minister and Mark Burton still Defence Minister, there is no doubt which minister would have gone first.

The fact Helen Clark had agreed that Mr Peters would be able to go in first suggests she is aware of a certain degree of sensitivity to the issue.

Both Mr Goff and Mr Peters had been out of the country when the Solomons crisis and East Timor crisis had arisen.

Like East Timor, Mr Goff returned first and went in first.

Helen Clark had handled both crises being, as Mr Goff reminded the committee, the pre-eminent Foreign Affairs representative of the country.

"The Prime Minister who is always the country's foremost representative internationally interacts very closely with Winston Peters and his office," Mr Goff said.

Helen Clark said this week that Mr Peters would still visit East Timor, but it would be up to him and his ministry to decide when.

It won't be this month, however.

Mr Peters is committed to bilateral talks with the Singapore Prime Minister and his party who arrive today for a five-day visit.

He is due to appear before the committee himself next Thursday, before heading to France for a Pacific summit with French President Jacques Chirac.

Mr Goff's appearance at the select committee was in itself a point of sensitivity, not for his appearance, but possible non-appearance.

Mr Peters by rights should speak to both the foreign affairs and trade budget for the coming year, being the minister responsible for foreign affairs and trade.

So Mr Peters required the committee to pass a majority vote that all trade questions to do with the Budget would be put to Mr Goff and not himself.

As an alternative, the pair perhaps could have appeared before the select committee together. But that would have been an invitation for Opposition MPs to concentrate negatively on the arrangements for Government.

And it would have created a photo opportunity that neither minister would have welcomed.