KEY POINTS:
Memo Kevin Rudd - Stay family, if you want to be taken seriously. That's the clear message Helen Clark sent to the Australian Prime Minister when she leaked to a Wellington newsletter that she had not been consulted before Rudd floated his vision of an Asia-Pacific community planning economic, political and security matters.
Clark's decision to use Trans Tasman - rather than her Monday post-Cabinet press conference - to signal her gritted-teeth interest in hearing more from Australia's Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard about the new venture was well chosen.
Clark could simply resort to plausible deniability by suggesting to Gillard that the newsletter had beaten up her position. But Trans Tasman is well read by bureaucratic and media elites in both New Zealand and Australia.
Australia's diplomats are well aware that Clark sets aside a weekly briefing with the publication to telegraph her Government's positions.
In the parlance of the diplomatic game, the Prime Minister had got her position out there.
By putting Gillard ever so slightly on the back foot, Clark made it clear that her Government's support for a move - which was slapped down in one Wall Street Journal commentary as lacking detail and smacking of policy made on the fly - is not unconditional.
Gillard, who is part of a seven-strong muster of senior Australian Cabinet ministers and Labor politicians in Wellington for the fifth Australia-New Zealand Leadership Forum knew, even before she met Clark last night, that she needed to defuse any ruffled feelings.
She emphasised the fact that she had chosen to leave Australia for the forum - while she was acting prime minister - which was an indication the Australians value the bilateral relationship highly.
For forum organisers, Clark's manoeuvre simply upped their challenge to ensure that some concrete measures which take the relationship forward emerge from the two days of conferencing on weighty issues.
Early signs were positive as Australian ministers engaged on some contentious tax policies promoted by Michael Cullen.
It's not really a surprise that Clark has struggled to capture Rudd's attention on his Asia-Pacific grand plan. His middle power ambitions for Australia were well-telegraphed even before Labor won last year's general election.
But while Rudd comes with a cast-iron track record as a former diplomat and former shadow foreign minister, he is the new kid on the block in the mercurial and byzantine world of Asian leadership diplomacy, where events show patience is rewarded over impetuosity.
He has yet to earn the track record that has made Clark a trusted voice within Asia-Pacific dialogues like Apec, where she is one of the most senior leaders in the region, or, as a leader who paved the way for both countries to be invited into the East-Asia Summit through the careful concessions she made in advance of Australia, which built support from Asian political leaders to invite the two Anglo-Saxons to come into the fold.
He has shown enormous respect for the bilateral relationship by deputing the biggest Australian ministerial team yet to attend the forum.
But in the theatre that really matters most to both Rudd and Clark - international diplomacy - he has failed to read the Prime Minister.
All sorts of theories have been proffered for this oversight. Rudd might have factored into his calculations that Clark could well be on her way out at this year's election and thus not worth taking into his confidence on long-game issues.
The absence of senior Australian ministers and officials from an Auckland dinner to celebrate the 25th anniversary of CER seriously miffed Clark's team earlier this year. Irrespective of later explanations that the organisers failed to invite Australia's leading players, there was a general feeling it was a bit like celebrating a family silver wedding party with only mum present.
It may be that Rudd simply believes that New Zealand is not a player. There is an element of truth to this.
Right from the time he was Labor's shadow foreign minister, Rudd framed his party's foreign policy in terms of "Three Pillars" - its engagement with the United Nations, Asia and the United States alliance. It was apparent that the former Australian foreign affairs official did not rate this country as a significant other, warranting just a few paragraphs in his 150-page document.
But there is a more profound issue at work here.
The reality is that while New Zealand was not in the frame, neither were many leading nations consulted. Barely coded messages have been sent by other nations to strengthen bilateral relations first, before hoping to take a leadership role in the region.
Rudd's enthusiasm simply got the better of good judgment.
Even the Australian headlined a critical commentary on his clumsy diplomacy "The new Mad Hatter".
If Gillard is perceptive she will take back to Canberra a clear view that New Zealand also intends to be a leading small player in the region.
It has no pretensions to be a middle power. But through its more understated manner, it can get things done.
There are some things mum knows.
