Winston Peters denies MFAT bid for more business class flights ever made it to the finance minister

Wednesday, 20 May 2026

The foreign affairs minister took exception to the line of questioning about the Government's announced public sector cuts and the upcoming Budget.

The finance minister has taken a swing at foreign affairs officials saying their business class flights should not be protected from budget cuts, as she confirmed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was yet again exempt from her savings drive.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has constantly acted as a protection guard for his ministry, even at one point going above the Finance Minister’s head to negotiate chief-to-chief with the Prime Minister.

And he’s come out with another win now - the Finance Minister confirming the ministry is exempt from her 2% blanket baselines savings exercise, but has agreed to 5% cuts the next two years.

“My view is actually what the foreign affairs service can do in the same way that any other agency can do is make sure that its back office is efficient that it is not duplicating services across government, and yes we need great diplomats on the front line, but they, just like every New Zealander, are accountable, and that means spending taxpayer money well.”

Peters has laughed the suggestion of future savings off, saying those commitments don’t matter because there is an election in November.

“I defended our budget, and as for what's coming in the future, no budget binds a future government,” Peters said.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Foreign Minister Winston Peters don’t always see eye to eye. (composite image)

“It’s disappointing and he’ll have to campaign on that and explain to New Zealanders why he thinks those tens of millions of dollars are spent on foreign affairs and trade, and not on hip operations or in our emergency rooms,” Willis said in response.

In fact, Peters believes we should be spending more on foreign affairs.

“Most definitely. We are competing with countries like Ireland, like Singapore, similar sized countries, two and a half times as many people in the field than we've got.

“We're a trading nation, dependent upon that completely, and we need more people in the field. That's been my view in all the times I've been a minister.”

In response, Willis took aim at the diplomats - in particular their business class flights.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced a sweeping pre-budget overhaul of the public service, aiming to slash nearly 9000 jobs by 2029 to save $2.4b. The PSA slammed the plan as reckless, while the ACT Party welcomed the bureaucracy cuts.

“Winston Peters and I differ on this. He would always have the diplomats have more money for their budgets and their business class flights and all of that stuff,” Willis said.

When Stuff asked if diplomats should be flying economy, the Finance Minister said, “in some cases, yes”.

Stuff then asked whether she too should fly economy when travelling abroad, her answer again was “in some cases, yes”.

Willis later hinted that the foreign affairs ministry had bid for more money out of her budget to fund more business class flights.

“That is an area where they’ve said they’d like to spend more money - on business class flights,” she said.

Willis believed that was out of touch, but wouldn’t expand on why the ministry wanted more flash flights.

“I’m not going to explain for them.”

Peters rejected the claim, saying that it was “not factual”.

“I have been out to do some research on this matter. It is not true,” he said. “That bid was never submitted in the end.”