KEY POINTS:
A risk-assessment report on the Air New Zealand charter flights of Australian troops to the Middle East was sent to Winston Peters' office before the flights but was not read.
National foreign affairs spokesman Murray McCully says that information is at odds with answers Mr Peters, the Foreign Minister, gave Parliament on August 16.
Mr Peters left the distinct impression that neither he nor anyone in his office had received any communication on the flights when he said: "To the best of everyone's recollections, there were no communications to the Minister of Foreign Affairs or to his office."
Mr McCully said Mr Peters had been "careless with the truth" .
He accepts an assurance from Mr Peters' office that at the time the minister made that statement he was not aware his office had received a report.
But Mr McCully said that at the very least Mr Peters should have corrected the misleading answer he gave the House in the four sitting weeks since.
Mr Peters insisted he had not misled the House because the question had been about communication from his own ministry. The report given to his office had not been from his ministry but the cross-agency Combined Threat Assessment Group (CTAG).
"CTAG does not work for me."
He said he received tens of thousands of such reports and read what he could but he had no alert on this particular report.
Revelations in August of the charter flights this year by the Government-owned airline werepolitically embarrassing for the Labour-led Government, because itso strongly opposed the Iraq war.
It was also revealed in August that the airline had sought the advice of Foreign Affairs Secretary Simon Murdoch and that the flights had been the subject of a CTAG report.
That report, according to emails obtained by National under the Official Information Act, was sent to Mr Peters' office but not read.
It was also sent to Mr Murdoch's office and not read.
It was, however, read by the foreign affairs official in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Andrea Smith.
National is expected to decide this morning whether to raise the issue in Parliament today.
