Nick Mills: Is Winston Peters running the coalition?

EDITORIAL: Overnight, we’ve learnt that behind closed doors, at the very start of this war in Iran, our own Government wasn’t quite on the same page.   And as a New Zealander watching all of this unfold, what I wanted—what I think most of us wanted—was a clear, confident line about where we as a country stand.  Instead, we’ve got emails, pushback—and a pretty uncomfortable question about who’s actually in charge.  Because cast your mind back to that first stand-up.   Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, fronting media, being pushed hard—simple question: does New Zealand support the strikes?  And he couldn’t give a straight answer.  He said we “acknowledge” them—but wouldn’t say support, wouldn’t oppose.   And at the time, that felt messy and unclear.   It felt, frankly, like a bit of a wobble—and that’s when the questions around his leadership really started to heat up.  But now—now we’ve got a bit more context.  Because the emails released under the Official Information Act show that, behind the scenes, Luxon was at least open to shifting New Zealand’s position—looking at aligning more closely with countries like Australia, who explicitly supported the US-led action.  And at the very same time, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his team were saying: absolutely not.  The advice was to hold the line. Stay neutral.   Don’t move toward explicit support—it would be “imprudent” and against New Zealand’s national interest.  So now you look back at that  dress disastrous stand-up and you have to ask: was Luxon unclear because he didn’t know what he thought? Or was he being pulled in two different directions at once?  Because that’s a very different story.  Now, here’s the interesting part.   The position we ended up with—that careful middle ground of acknowledging but not supporting—actually lines up with public sentiment.   An Ipsos poll in April showed 87% of Kiwis don’t want military involvement, 83% think it would escalate things further, and about three-quarters don’t think it’s worth higher fuel prices.  So the outcome? Probably right.  But the process? That’s where this gets shaky.  Because what we’ve seen is internal disagreement, emails being released publicly by the Foreign Minister’s office, a late-night Beehive meeting—and an admission from Peters that releasing those emails was a mistake. But Winston Peters doesn’t make mistakes.  That’s not a Government speaking with one voice.  And I’ll say this—Winston Peters is experienced, he’s a global operator, and he knows exactly how to play the diplomatic game.   But when it starts to feel like he’s the one holding the reins, and the Prime Minister is reacting—  You’ve got to ask the question:  Who’s actually running the country?  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.