The Prime Minister says Helen Clark's campaign to be United Nations (UN) secretary-general has got a little bit dirty, but he's not surprised.
The international magazine Foreign Policy has run a feature on Ms Clark's tenure as the leader of the United Nations Development Programme saying she has "left a trail of embittered peers and subordinates" after carrying out large-scale restructuring.
But Prime Minister John Key said Ms Clark was clearly the front-runner for the job and the article showed others didn't want her to win.
The article also suggests Ms Clark's managers drove a UN employee out of her job for being involved in a report that criticised the agency's inaction during the Sri Lankan civil war.