NZ's still first for Winston Peters

Winston Peters says he was approached about a diplomatic posting. Photo / Doug Sherring

Winston Peters says the Government has pestered him to accept an overseas ambassadorship - to get him out of politics and out of the country.

Prime Minister John Key has publicly stated he will not work with the NZ First leader but Peters says he's been getting very different messages behind the scenes.

He says he was approached on behalf of Murray McCully, foreign affairs minister and National Party strategist, in 2009 and last year, a claim McCully denies.

Peters' assertion emerges as he steps up his campaign to return to Parliament. Yesterday, he and Labour leader Phil Goff both spoke at a festival in South Auckland then shook hands afterwards.

Goff insisted it was not the first handshake of a political coalition.

Today, Peters is to address a public meeting in Kelston, West Auckland.

Speaking to the Herald on Sunday, he said the first mention of a diplomatic posting was a phone-call from Richard Griffin, the political insider who was previously a top adviser to Prime Minister Jim Bolger.

The second was from a former political figure who he refused to name. Both said they had been asked by McCully to act as go-betweens.

The Government denied the claim. McCully said yesterday that it was "fiction".

"First point, if anyone is being offered an ambassadorship, my practice is to make the approach to the appointee myself. I never make approaches through third parties," he said.

"And I have never approached Mr Peters offering him an ambassadorship, nor do I ever intend to."

But Peters said although no specific country posting was discussed, he was asked which of the upcoming appointments he might fancy.

Among the political appointments announced by McCully in the past year have been former Labour Prime Minister Mike Moore as ambassador to the United States, former National MP Mark Blumsky as high commissioner to Niue, and retiring National minister John Carter to the Cook Islands.

Peters has a long-running relationship with the Cook Islands but he indicated his experience in politics and as foreign affairs minister put him in a different league from Carter. "The offer was made, would I be interested in a diplomatic post - not once, but twice," said Peters, who was foreign affairs minister from 2005 to 2008.

It was "very odd," he added, that the Prime Minister would in one breath say he was not happy to work with Peters and NZ First, then in the next breath send go-betweens to offer Peters a diplomatic posting. "It was cynical and unprincipled politics at its worst. As minister, there's no way I would have sent somebody abroad I didn't trust."

Yesterday, Griffin refused to discuss what conversations he'd had with McCully about sounding out Peters, saying he didn't want to get involved in any "conspiracy theories".

"He's a friend of mine and I was having a discussion with him about what he might look to do in the future. I thought I was having a discussion with a man looking to a new future, not a man looking to get back into politics," Griffin said.

Peters is preparing to lead NZ First in this year's general election campaign, seeking a return to Parliament after he failed to win his Tauranga electorate or to pass the 5 per cent MMP threshold in 2008.

He has been based in Auckland since then, sparking rumours he would challenge Key for the Helensville electorate.

But Peters said the party had not yet decided which electorate - if any - he would contest at the general election.

He said NZ First would not contest next month's Botany byelection as it was a waste of money. His decision to resign from Parliament and run again in the 1993 Tauranga byelection had been entirely different, as he had been suspended from the National Party caucus and needed to seek a new mandate.