The Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters is defending New Zealand's absence from the Fifth World Holocaust Forum in Israel, saying the Speaker Trevor Mallard was happy to attend but the organisers said no.
National's foreign affairs spokesperson Gerry Brownlee has labelled the non-appearance a disgraceful decision at what will be the largest gathering of countries to fight anti-Semitism on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
He says the Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy, or a Minister, should be there.
The invitation was to heads of state, which Mr Peters says is a mistaken impression of New Zealand's constitution, so Dame Patsy was never considered.
And he says when National was in power it didn't send any political or head of state representative to the forum in 2010 or 2015.
Peters spoke to political reporter Jo Moir about how things ended up here.
