Fran O'Sullivan: Don Brash smells a rat over PM's timing

It's a funny coincidence, said National's Don Brash yesterday, piqued at losing his pole position to the Israeli apology.

You're not half right, Don.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, who had been sitting on a promise from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he would apologise over the passports scandal, brought the affair to a head at exactly the right time to push National's election-year conference off the front pages of today's newspapers.

Political editors for both major television channels abandoned National's conference to fly to Auckland after Helen Clark's spin doctor advised them the apology would be announced at 3pm.

Challenged yesterday, the Prime Minister labelled National's claims of media manipulation as "yet another attention-seeking device".

"The announcement I am making today is one that is being synchronised with the Government of Israel - which has its Cabinet meeting in Tel

Aviv this morning. In the normal course of events I would prefer to do this at my regular Monday press conference.

"However, my press conference can't be held at a time which is particularly convenient for Israeli officials."

But her explanations were pure spin. Israeli diplomatic negotiator Michael Ronen said yesterday the timing of the apology had nothing to do with the Israeli Cabinet meeting.

"The timing for when it would be announced was not by us. The whole thing was approved by the Prime Minister [Mr Sharon] about two months ago ... then we were waiting for your side to move."

One of the delaying factors might have been the push by New Zealand for the apology to be made public, Foreign Minister Phil Goff suggested.

But Mr Ronen said it was just this weekend - or maybe a day or two beforehand - that "we knew we were rolling into the final stage. We did not ask for a particular day".

A copy of Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's apology was signed off "a couple of days ago".

Domestic politics aside, there are other important issues not yet resolved from yesterday's announcements. The Israeli apology is shrouded with diplomatic doublespeak and so, too, is the Government's response.

Helen Clark yesterday left hanging why she had gone soft over her failure to get an explanation for behaviour she previously labelled an "utterly unacceptable break of international law and New Zealand sovereignty".

Diplomatic observers suggest she had already been given one but had agreed to keep it confidential for intelligence reasons.