Citizenship row: Jacinda Ardern's offer of phone call with Australia's Julie Bishop still on table

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said on August 16 it would "very difficult to build trust" with a Labour government should the party win the upcoming New Zealand election. Photo / AP

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern hasn't spoken to Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop about the Barnaby Joyce citizenship controversy - but says the offer of a phone call remains.

"No I haven't," Ardern said today after announcing policy in Christchurch. "I put the offer on the table. And certainly I'd make myself available even in the midst of this busy campaign."

Ardern called in High Commissioner Peter Woolcott earlier this month after Bishop said she could not trust a future Labour Government if it had colluded with Australia's Labor Party to try and uncover the fact Joyce, the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, was a New Zealand citizen.

Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern said today that she had "put the offer on the table. And certainly I'd make myself available even in the midst of this busy campaign." Photo / Jason Oxenham

Labour MP Chris Hipkins had asked written Parliamentary questions that related to citizenship, after a conversation with an Australian Labor Party staffer, Marcus Ganley.

Hipkins maintains that Joyce's situation was not mentioned in that conversation and his actions did not relate to Joyce.

After meeting Woolcott, Ardern said she made it clear to him that Hipkins should not have asked the questions that he did, but had not apologised.

Joyce, whose New Zealand-born father makes him a New Zealand citizen, received a large number of nominations from the public to be the 2018 New Zealander of the Year.