KEY POINTS:
Here's my wrap on how the main players have acquitted themselves over the Air New Zealand fiasco, in which the Govt has only just discovered that the airline it owns - but does not control - has been transporting Australian troops to the Iraq border.
Foreign Affairs secretary Simon Murdoch:
It is a mystery why so many people are referring to Murdoch as the "fall guy" and as "taking the rap" for not notifying consulting the Government when Air New Zealand sought advice from him.
He isn't the fall guy; he is the guy. He should rightly take the rap - and he has - but he did so because he had no choice. There was nowhere to hide.
You can argue all you like about the rights and wrongs of the Labour Government objecting to the carriage of the troops, but you cannot argue the Government's right to have been consulted by Murdoch before giving Air New Zealand clearance for takeoff.
The question is why Murdoch's alarm bells did not ring and there can be only one answer: that he saw nothing to be alarmed about.
He will have applied a legal test to the proposition and concluded that the war against Iraq is over, legally speaking, that the Coalition of the Willing is now there by invitation of the Iraq Government to create stability and that that is recognised by UN Security Council resolution by which New Zealand puts such great store.
See Nos 9 and 10 in resolution 1546 in 2004: daccessdds.un.org
And he will have applied his own version of a political test, seeing it as a positive move for the Anzac relationship. After serving as Head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet he was High Commissioner to Australia and under his watch at Foreign Affairs, despite Iraq, New Zealand has grown closer to Australia.
He could not possibly have foreseen political sensitivity in the future when he saw none in the present. Nonetheless, Murdoch made the mistake of substituting his judgment for the Government's.
Prime Minister Helen Clark
She joined the fray only on Friday and tried to make light of it, putting it down to "one bad-hair moment" ( see Herald story) by Murdoch - but that is contrived. She will not be laughing on the inside. Labour's attack on John Key for the past two weeks over Iraq may have intensified the ridicule, but the Government would still have looked a fool without it.
A serious consequence of the debacle, raised by Fran O'Sullivan in the Weekend Herald, is the damage it has done to the relationship with Australia, to the extent that High Commissioner John Larkindale was called in by Downer for a dressing down. New Zealand's differences with Australia over Iraq have been managed through a degree of mutual respect shown by both sides. That was given no consideration last week when Australian troops were virtually given the same "invader" status in 2007 as they had in 2003. Clark or Winston Peters should have picked up the phone to their counterparts.
Presumably Clark is counting on forming new relationships after the Australian elections in October or November.
Murdoch will appalled that he has contributed indirectly to the friction.
New Zealand's cavalier attitude to Australia is where this story still has legs.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters
What should really be seen as a failure by the Foreign Minister - outside Government - is being seen as a triumph for him. In reality he failed to represent the Government's position, which is his primary task in the peculiar arrangements of Government he secured last election. Peters could not run the issue alone for the Government - Goff, then Cullen then Clark all stepped in - because his heart wasn't in it. His first loyalty was the ministry and its public servant that magnificently support him to be the Foreign Minister he is today. Peters can afford to be offside with Labour more than the ministry he depends upon so much.
Peters-baiters like David Farrar www.kiwiblog.co.nz
are praising Peters as the voice of reason.
National leader John Key
There isn't a cigarette paper between Key and Labour on this one. He thinks Murdoch should have advised Air New Zealand not to progress with the tender. " I think the right advice from MFAT should have been to tell them not to do it, simply because by association it involves them in something with which the declared position of the Government was not to be involved," he told the Herald on Friday.
It is difficult to see how National will be able to make capital out of the debacle after that statement.
On the other hand, it is difficult to see how the Labour Government will be able to continue to make capital out of John Key on Iraq without being reminded of how foolish it looked last week.
