National hammers Ardern and Peters over confidential coalition agreement

Jacinda Ardern says the document has not been passed to ministers - but some ministers have it in another capacity. Photo/ Mark Mitchell

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she welcomed the Ombudsman deciding whether the 33-page document she is withholding from the public from the coalition talks should be released.

And while she said that the document had not been given to ministers, New Zealand First ministers, at least, have a copy of the document.

But according to cabinet minister Tracey Martin, she has it in her capacity as a New Zealand First negotiator, not as a minister.

National leader Bill English used his first Questions Time up against Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to highlight the fact she is withholding the document – a document that Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said would be released.

Front bencher Gerry Brownlee accused the Government of having "a secret agenda."

Peters originally revealed the existence of the larger document at a press conference on October 25, after the thin eight-page coalition document had been revealed.

He said at the time that it was still being finalised and that it would be released.

He said, for example, that it contained an agreement that political appointments to diplomatic posts would be a rarity and that New Zealand would be appointing the best people to represent New Zealand overseas.

"I don't expect people to join Foreign Affairs and work their butt off and train for a career and be superseded and passed over by politicians seeking to live out their lives in luxury somewhere else."

"It is going to be released at some point but these are projects – the Prime Minister will explain better than I and it is her responsibility to explain it but – these are directives to ministers with accountability and media strategies to ensure that the coalition works, not in a jealous, envious way – 'we got this and they got that' - but as a Government [that] successfully, cohesively works.

"We put a lot of thought into it. In fact on day one of our negotiations, that was the first subject we raised, about how we are going to handle a cohesive coalition arrangement."

Ardern told the House that during the course of negotiations, a number of documents were exchanged. The coalition document had been released.

"As for any other documentation through the course of the negotiation, we've been open that they have existed. That does not mean that those are firm commitments that we have signed up to, nor that they will ever be progressed."

"I welcome the Ombudsman looking at this issues," Ardern said. "I welcome him making a decision on whether or not we've made the right classification of this documentation."

Newsroom is understood to have appealed to the Ombudsman after being refused the document.

National deputy leader Paula Bennett also questioned Peters in Parliament on the document, which he said had been reduced from a 38-page document to a 33-page document because a staff member had changed the font size.

Asked if it was a ministerial staffer, he said it was someone who worked for New Zealand First – an important distinction because Government ministers and officials are subject to the Official Information Act, whereas political parties are not.

Speaking to reporters after Question Time, Peters said more work was being done: "We are working on various things as to their viability and if they stack up in terms of the budgeting commitments we've got and we don't know exactly what the state of the economy is. I personally don't believe what the [National] Government said about the health of the economy was right. A lot of economists were forecasting that things weren't as good as they said they were. So in that light, you work on policy on the basis of 'can we stack this up and make it a goer and fund it. Until we know all those things, we won't be able to release the work we have been engaged on."

But he added that they began their engagement on the work before the coalition decision.