New Zealand has to work its way through its relationship with Australia, the Deputy Prime Minister says.
Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Foreign Affairs Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters - in his first live RNZ interview since he was sworn in - discussed the change of leadership in Zimbabwe refugee offer to Australia for Manus Island, and the trans-Tasman relationship.
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Mr Peters told Morning Report he hoped the new Zimbabwe leadership learned from Mugabe's mistakes.
"The military have withdrawn from the situation, it looks like there's going to be a transition to a new leader ... One hopes that proper democratic principles, institutions, will be allowed to take their place and that we'll have a transition to a proper democracy and some hope of economic recovery of what was a very sound economy some time back before Mugabe took over.
"We hope for the best.
"It's very sad, back at the time he [Mugabe] was coming to power Robert Muldoon expressed some serious concerns ... He was right about Mugabe. He [Mugabe] did not respect the democratic institutions and ... it's hoped the new leadership can learn something from that."
Refugees
Pressure has been mounting on the Australian government after the Manus Island detention centre closed and about 400 men refused to leave the centre in Papua New Guinea.
The United Nations says Australia created then abandoned a humanitarian crisis in PNG.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern raised a longstanding New Zealand offer to take refugees - 150 from Manus Island and another offshore detention centre on Nauru - but Australia did not take the offer and said its priority was a resettlement deal with the United States.
Mr Peters said he could not really say anything more on the offer to Australia and it was "more complicated than it sounds".
"This was an offer made by the National party as to the 150 back in 2013.
"The offer has not been taken up but I can't really say ... what the hopes are.
"But the offer's on the table, it was put there by the National party as I say in 2013, you'll have to await the outcome. We have to work our way through this with the Australians."
Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton last week described a New Zealand offer of $3 million to Papua New Guinea as a waste of money - but Mr Peters said an offer to give assistance might ease some of the problems on Manus Island.
Asked whether the relationship with Australia was better or worse since taking office, he said it was about the same.
"The reality is that some of us were saying and I was one of them way back in 2001, in fact in the late 90s ... that there were going to be consequences for what we were doing in allowing our country to be a backdoor to Australia and that ended up with the deal between Helen Clark and John Howard, which saw a serious restriction of the hitherto fundamental rights of equality of New Zealanders going to Australia."