Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has said remarks made about him by Foreign Minister Winston Peters on a morning media round this morning were “entirely defamatory” and that he would begin legal action.

A spokesperson for Peters said, “the Minister will respond if he receives formal notification of any such action”.

Watch Question Time Live:

Carr is a well-known critic of the Aukus submarine deal and the non-nuclear pillar 2 component of it that New Zealand is currently weighing up. Aukus is widely seen as a hedge by Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom against growing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific.

Carr recently travelled to New Zealand to speak at a conference on Aukus hosted by the Labour Party.

On RNZ’s Morning Report, Peters made remarks critical of Carr’s stance on Aukus and his relationship to China. Segments of the interview have been removed by RNZ from the version archived on their website.

A statement given to the Herald said: “Mr Carr said Mr Peters’ comments were entirely defamatory and he would commence legal action.”

Bob Carr, former Australian foreign minister at an Aukus seminar at Parliament organised by the NZ Labour Party. Photo by Audrey Young

The remarks came after Peters delivered a major foreign policy speech in Wellington on Wednesday night, laying out New Zealand’s position on Aukus.

Peters said the Government would “carefully weigh up the economic and security benefits and costs” of the deal, but that the Government was “a long way from this point of being able to make such a decision”.

At a media stand-up in Auckland this morning, Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should stand Peters down.

“He should stand Winston Peters down immediately. These sorts of allegations by a foreign affairs minister are unacceptable. They cannot be left unchallenged. Winston Peters cannot execute his duties as Foreign Affairs Minister while he has this hanging over him,” Hipkins said.

“[Peters] has stepped well outside his brief. He’s embarrassed the country. He’s created legal risk to the New Zealand Government because he has made these comments as our Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister must do something about that,” he said.

Peters was also critical of former Prime Minister Helen Clark’s opposition to Aukus, arguing that she had not read an intelligence briefing since she left office and therefore had less of an idea about the threat posed by China.

Clark told the Herald those remarks were “ridiculous” and said she believed Peters had defamed Carr.

She said “Intelligence briefings need to be scrutinised carefully. We could have ended up invading Iraq illegally if we had believed the utterly wrong and misleading US/UK-generated intelligence”.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018. 

This article was originally published on the NZ Herald here.