The Iran war email saga will not be damaging to the Prime Minister, his deputy David Seymour believes.
Christopher Luxon was only trying to understand the position of New Zealand’s allies when he pushed for “explicit public support” for the war in early March, Seymour said on Ryan Bridge TODAY.
Emails released to the Herald by Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ office under the Official Information Act show Peters and his staff talked Luxon out of his position, with the Government’s public statement instead taking a more neutral stance.
Asked this morning if the saga was potentially damaging to Luxon given Kiwis did not support the war, the Act leader and Deputy Prime Minister said he couldn’t disagree more.
“The Prime Minister sought to understand all of the context. He sought to understand the position that Australia and Canada, two of our closest friends, ultimately took,” Seymour told Bridge.
“The idea that that inquiry about a position two months ago affects the strain that Kiwis are suffering now, which is very real, they’re two completely unrelated things.”
Seymour repeated yesterday’s assertion the saga was a storm in a teacup.
What mattered was that this week the Government had secured another 90 million litres of diesel, good diplomatic ties were being maintained with the likes of Singapore, Korea and Japan where New Zealand’s refined fuel was coming from, and those most affected were getting financial support, he said.
Seymour told Bridge he did not support the war in Iran.
“Even the people that started it and the people engaged in it are trying to find an offramp.”
Seymour also confirmed the US embassy in New Zealand had been asked by the Trump administration to press our Government to join a new US-led coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The Wall Street Journal reported an internal State Department cable was sent to US embassies on Tuesday this week, calling on US diplomats to pressure foreign governments to join an effort to allow ships to traverse the strait, which has been effectively closed for two months.
“There’s been a very brief discussion, like literally a couple of minutes at the end of a meeting, ‘Hey guys, this just came in’,” he told Bridge.
“But in terms of a serious discussion at Cabinet or anything like that’s still a way off, if it happens at all.”
There was no outline of what such a coalition would look like, Seymour said.
Asked for his feelings on such an alliance, Seymour said it was in New Zealand’s interest to have freedom of navigation but the question was how best to achieve that.
TVNZ political editor Maiki Sherman will not be able to report from Parliament today as a five-day ban takes effect today until Wednesday, May 6.
The ban was imposed because of the way Sherman tried to interview National whip Stuart Smith in a corridor late on Tuesday last week.
Former Speaker of the House Sir Lockwood Smith said the decision, made by current Speaker Gerry Brownlee, was the right one.
“The rules are important. Members of Parliament must be able to go about their business without being chased endlessly, and it was a breach of the rules,” he told Ryan Bridge TODAY.
In 2011, Smith removed parliamentary access cards from NZ Herald political staff for 10 days.
The action followed the publication on the Herald website of a photograph of guards and other people restraining a man who was trying to jump from the public gallery into the debating chamber.
Smith said he made the decision because of the problem around potential copycat actions.
When he became Speaker, there were not many rules for press gallery reporters, Smith said.
“It was a bit of a wild west in the house there.
“I remember one occasion a member of Parliament was chased into the toilet by a member of the press gallery trying to interview them.
“That’s why I introduced those rules around the areas where the gallery can interview members because they must be able to, it’s an important part of their function, but they can’t chase them into private offices, into toilets and that sort of thing.”