NZ First leader Winston Peters has gone public with his criticism of Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully\u2019s actions over controversial United Nations Resolution 2334.<\/p>\n
McCully\u2019s office has confirmed he never had Cabinet approval when New Zealand promoted a United Nations Security Council resolution denouncing Israel, according to Peters<\/a>,<\/p>\n In a response under the Official Information Act, Mr McCully\u2019s office claims the text of Resolution 2334 from Egypt, was not presented to the Cabinet because it was received on 22 December, 2016 and voted on in the morning of December 24, 2016.<\/p>\n The office claims Mr McCully\u2019s actions were consistent with New Zealand\u2019s policy settings. That statement is false. And that\u2019s the reason why countries like Australia and others are asking the New Zealand Government for an explanation.<\/p>\n Section 5.73 of the Cabinet manual expressly requires that any international proposal, including \u2018denunciation\u2019, must first be approved by the Cabinet\u201d.\u00a0Winston Peters<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Peters said McCully acted unilaterally on an important international issue \u2013 and that this begs the question of why was the Cabinet effectively hijacked on this issue.<\/p>\n Clearly the National government feels vulnerable on this lack of Cabinet decision making and is refusing to reveal any information around the decision.<\/p>\n New Zealand First\u2019s requests for details of briefing documents, correspondence, and other relevant documents have been rejected for reasons including \u2018avoiding prejudicing the international relations of the New Zealand government\u2019, and that \u2018no public interest in releasing the information that has been withheld has been identified that would be sufficient to override the reasons for withholding it\u2019.\u201d\u00a0Winston Peters<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In Peters\u2019 view, the reality is that McCully\u2019s actions and the government\u2019s condonation of them have seriously prejudiced this country\u2019s international relations and constitute a damaging diplomatic blunder.<\/p>\n New Zealand co-sponsored Resolution 2334<\/a>, which condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as an obstacle to the two-state solution, on December 23 last year.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Ambassador to New Zealand, Dr Itzhak Gerberg, was recalled shortly afterwards and, to date, has not returned to New Zealand.<\/p>\n McCully has staunchly defended New Zealand\u2019s co-sponsorship of Resolution 2334 as being consistent with \u201cour long standing bi-partisan support for the two state solution as a basis for resolving the Palestinian question\u201d.<\/p>\n He has been supported in this position by Prime Minister Bill English<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, there has been a significant level of public disquiet<\/a> over New Zealand\u2019s involvement with Resolution 2334. At one point, McCully\u2019s electoral office was even vandalised with graffiti.<\/p>\n