Bob Carr threatens legal action against NZ deputy PM Winston Peters

A messy fight between the former Australian foreign minister and New Zealand’s deputy prime minister is ramping up.

Bob Carr and New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister have ratcheted up their clash over AUKUS, as the former premier and foreign minister threatens legal action over a comment.

Amid discussions New Zealand may play a part in AUKUS Pillar 2 – which Mr Carr strongly opposes – Winston Peters made comments about Mr Carr and China on Radio NZ on Thursday.

It spurred Mr Carr to threaten legal action against Mr Peters, who is also New Zealand’s Foreign Minister.

The spat continued on Friday morning, when Mr Peters took to X to seemingly fire another shot at Mr Carr.

“We should never be accepting of any irrelevant ill-informed shill from some other country to walk into New Zealand and try to tell us what to do,” Mr Peters wrote.

“Here in New Zealand we respect something called a ‘country’s independent nationhood’. That principle seems lost on these people who just use it as a punchline.”

A few hours later, he shared quotes from an RNZ interview where he said he was “in for a legal fight” with Mr Carr.

“I’m not a coward, I’m standing up for the rights and principles of our society,” he told RNZ on Friday morning.

New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters made alleged defamatory comments about Bob Carr on national radio. Picture: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

We should never be accepting of any irrelevant ill-informed shill from some other country to walk into New Zealand and try to tell us what to do.

Here in New Zealand we respect something called a ‘country’s independent nationhood’. That principle seems lost on these people who…

— Winston Peters (@winstonpeters) May 2, 2024

New Zealand, which passed legislation in the 1980s making the country a nuclear-free zone, is debating whether it should become involved in AUKUS Pillar 2, which is concerned with developing and sharing advanced technologies.

Mr Carr, a vocal critic of the entire AUKUS pact, had laid out his problems with the partnership during a visit to Wellington last month, where he described pillar two of being “cobbled together to make it look like there’s more to AUKUS than subs – there isn’t”.

In a foreign policy speech on Wednesday night, Mr Peters said New Zealand was yet to consider collaboration on Pillar 2 as it had not been invited.

It was during a round of interviews on Thursday morning that he was asked about Mr Carr’s criticisms, prompting the broadside.

“What on Earth does he think he’s doing walking into our country and telling us what to do? We would no more do that in Australia than he should do here. That’s the kind of arrogance we don’t like,” Mr Peters told Radio NZ.

The section of the interview that contains the potentially defamatory remarks has been edited out of RNZ’s clips.

Mr Carr has launched legal action against Mr Peters. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard POOL Via NCA NewsWire

New Zealand’s Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins said Mr Peters’ comments had “embarrassed the country” and demanded he stand down.

“The fact that you’ve now got someone like Bob Carr taking defamation action against Winston Peters is embarrassing for New Zealand, it shows that Winston Peters has abused his office as minister of foreign affairs and this now becomes a problem for the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon,” he said.

Mr Peters was asked during Question Time on Thursday whether he stood by his statement about Bob Carr, to which he said “yes”.

“Particularly those comments that highlighted the fact that critics don’t know what they don’t know regarding the strategic challenges New Zealand faces,” he said.

Under parliamentary privilege, Mr Peters held up a printed version of an Australian Financial Review article from 2018 and read its headline aloud, saying: “How Bob Carr became China’s pawn”.

Starting another hike above Walensee Switzerland. Interesting NZ’s PM won’t endorse language of his FM. I was proud to join @HelenClarkNZ on a Labour platform in Wellington to say AUKUS offers nothing to NZ. Btw the speech listed criticisms of China I’ve made and continue to make pic.twitter.com/ygV40BOWRf

— Bob Carr (@bobjcarr) May 2, 2024

Mr Carr, who is currently in Europe, tweeted on Thursday it was “interesting” that New Zealand’s Prime Minister wouldn’t endorse Mr Peters’ language.

“I was proud to … say AUKUS offers nothing to NZ,” he said.
“Btw, the speech listed criticisms of China I’ve made and continue to make.”

Mr Carr said he would sue Mr Peters for defamation over his comments.

“The lawyers are finishing the letter,” Mr Carr told Nine newspapers.