NZFOI: You’ll need to read between the lines on this one…
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters is defending New Zealand’s absence from the Fifth World Holocaust Forum in Israel, saying that Speaker Trevor Mallard was happy to attend but the organisers said no.
Winston Peters is defending New Zealand’s absence from the Fifth World Holocaust Forum in Israel. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
National’s foreign affairs spokesperson Gerry Brownlee has labelled the non-appearance a “disgraceful decision”.
“The government has failed to send a single representative, not even the Governor-General or a minister, to this significant event. We send ministers and Members of Parliament to a number of events around the world, but not to this one,” he said.
“New Zealand received an invite, and now we are going to be one of the only first-world countries, on the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, to not be there.”
The invitation to the forum was for heads of state, which Peters said was a “mistaken impression” of New Zealand’s constitution, so the Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy was never an option.
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