What is Peters up to in refugee spat?

Jacinda Ardern will be feted by international media when she flies to New York in a few weeks’ time for the United Nations General Assembly. There is huge global interest in Ardern as the Left’s antidote to Donald Trump; young, female, liberal and the face of compassionate government.

Someone should tell them about Winston Peters.

One of Labour’s flagship policies to increase the refugee quota from 1000 to 1500 is seemingly in doubt after Peters pulled the rug out from Ardern as she was due to leave for the Pacific Forum at Nauru where the plight of refugees is front and centre.

Just like the last time he pulled the plug on Labour – over the three strikes law – Peters’ timing seems deliberate.

He has drawn attention to the fact that, despite Labour’s rhetoric, there is no commitment in the coalition agreement to raise the refugee quota.

He put Ardern on the back foot over the refugee issue even before she landed.

Unless Peters changes tack, Ardern will land in New York with even less to say about her Government’s response to one of the most pressing problems of our time. New Zealand’s annual quota of around 1000 refugees a year is not just a drop in the ocean; it also places us squarely below other developed countries like Australia in terms of our willingness to help.

Peters has suggested New Zealand should fix its own backyard first, pointing to 50,000 homeless and ‘‘degradation’’ in places like Hokianga. That suggests NZ First’s position is unlikely to change so long as he is part of this Labour-led Government.

In the case of the refugees detained on Manus Island and Nauru, the reported conditions – particularly among the 100-plus children sent there by Australia to be detained – are appalling.

As Acting Prime Minister Kelvin Davis noted in an interview with Stuff yesterday, a life behind wires is no place for a child.

That issue is largely out of Ardern’s hands: like John Key before, she has offered to take 150 of the Manus Island refugees and been rebuffed by the Australian Government, which fears New Zealand being used as a backdoor entry to Australia.

Peters’ comments on that issue are also baffling. He suggests there is an easy ‘‘fix’’, which as Opposition leader Simon Bridges notes can mean only one of two things: either Australia shuts down its open-door policy for Kiwis, or we create a second class of citizenship. Neither seems likely.

Regardless, there are huge expectations among Labour’s supporters that Ardern will do more than any of her predecessors on the refugee issue. Peters may dash those hopes.

Davis knows Peters from way back and looks up to him as a role model. He said Peters didn’t say much around the Cabinet table ‘‘but when he does, people listen’’. That makes Peters’ megaphone diplomacy even more inexplicable.

If Labour and Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway had been getting too far ahead of themselves in assuming the quota increase was a given, Peters could have easily slapped them down behind closed doors.

But maybe that wasn’t the point.

Winston Peters didn’t say much around the Cabinet table ‘‘but when he does, people listen’’.