John Armstrong: Peters stands the heat and survives

Normally as cool as a proverbial cucumber, Winston Peters mopped his brow and complained about the temperature.

The Foreign Minister was feeling the heat yesterday. However, it may have had as much to do with his audience as the stuffy lecture theatre in which he was speaking.

The membership of the Institute of International Affairs is a veritable "who's who" of foreign policy - the cream of New Zealand diplomats past and present, foreign ambassadors, senior bureaucrats, academics, trade specialists, representatives of lobby groups and so on.

Like Caesars about to deliver the life-and-death verdict on a gladiator's performance, there they sat, a wall-to-wall panel of experts poised to offer silent judgment on his handling of the detail and nuances of his portfolio after four months in the job.

In Mr Peters' case, his first major speech outlining his foreign policy priorities was a competence test made more complicated by the special political circumstances surrounding him being a minister while not being part of the Labour-led Government.

If he stamps his imprint too firmly on his portfolio too soon, he gets accused of flouting Labour policy which he is obliged to uphold.

If he strictly follows the line, he is labelled a puppet.

However, this audience was inclined more to caution than adventure. Mr Peters consequently seemed to get the thumbs up for his address - a bland, cover-all-the bases outline of policy objectives which bore all the hallmarks of being authored by his officials.

The speech made special note of his priority "for deriving greater mutual benefit" from New Zealand's relationship with the United States.

But he then departed markedly from the script to chide the US for not giving New Zealand enough credit for its work in the Pacific. It was a reminder to his critics that he is no ventriloquist's dummy.

The real test came afterwards during questions, the content of which he had no prior warning.

The first probed whether Mr Peters thought democracy was always preferable even if it threw up results which other countries found impossible to stomach - such as the victory by Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections.

The immediate response was more Winston Peters, leader of New Zealand First, than Winston Peters, foreign minister. He typically quoted his namesake, Winston Churchill, who had famously declared: "Always trust the people."

Mr Peters added that "the acquisition of power always changes people, it brings an enormous sense of responsibility" - but he did not say if that applied as much to him as it might to Hamas.

Firmly donning his Foreign Minister's hat, he then urged that Hamas be subjected to that firm course of action favoured by diplomats down the ages - a wait-and-see approach.

The next questioner wanted to know what New Zealand could do to persuade the US to view the United Nations more favourably. Grappling for an answer, Mr Peters finally opted for the honest one: "Not a great deal."

He comfortably handled two more questions before time ran out. Waiting for him outside the lecture theatre were the media - an audience which holds no fears for Mr Peters, but a bilateral relationship which he could also do well to work on normalising.