Peters boils over press push

Winston Peters

While Foreign Minister Winston Peters was warming up relationships between New Zealand and the United States yesterday, his fiery relationship with New Zealand media was still near boiling point.

On Wednesday Mr Peters interrupted a meeting with senior Republican Senator John McCain to curtly dismiss journalists invited by Mr McCain's staff to ask questions. He then issued a press release which said journalists had exhibited "the most embarrassing, arrogant and insulting behaviour I have ever seen".

Yesterday Mr Peters was comparatively restrained, accusing journalists of a "massive campaign of misinformation" and saying Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper had pushed him. Soper brushed off the pushing allegation as nothing major and just another episode in what he termed an up and down relationship with Mr Peters.

"We were walking down a corridor and his cuffs brushed against me and that was all there was to it. He accused me of pushing him which I wasn't, we were just coming down a cramped corridor ... it was Winston overreacting to a situation that basically didn't exist," Soper said.

"I've been travelling with prime ministers and Cabinet ministers for 26 years and this would have to be the most unusual trip I've done."