Audrey Young: Team New Zealand in its truest sense

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has spent six years orchestrating the campaign to get on the UN Security Council. Photo / AP

When I talked to Foreign Minister Murray McCully in the final stages of New Zealand's campaign for the Security Council about the vote, he was realistic about the approaching moment of truth in the UN general assembly.

"The numbers will not lie," he said. "You can't put a gloss on it as so often happens in foreign affairs meetings.

"There's no way of spinning it."

That's something coming from someone who is seen as a master of political spin and strategy.

Fortunately he did not have to attempt to spin a loss this morning.

When the result came through at about 4.45am today, it was an emphatic win - 145 votes on the first ballot - well past the 129 vote hurdle need to win a seat.

It took two more ballots between Spain and Turkey for Spain to claim the other vacancy.

He said later his first reaction was relief, a sentiment clearly shared by ambassador Jim McLay as he threw his hands to his face.

Radio New Zealand this morning ungenerously said Mr McCully had been campaigning hard for the past few months.

The fact is Mr McCully has been orchestrating the campaign with all his heart for the entire six years he has been Foreign Minister.

Mr McLay, the very model of a major modern diplomat, has been working on it for five years, hand-picked by Mr McCully, along with an army of accomplished Foreign Affairs officials such as Gerard Van Bohemen, and elder statesmen such as Jim Bolger and Sir Don McKinnon.

It was not a campaign that captured the public imagination in the way Dean Barker and his team did.

The mayor wont be throwing a ticker-tape parade for Mr McCully and his victors when they return to New Zealand.

But this was a Team New Zealand in its truest sense.