Peters' ‘promising’ visit to the Cook Islands, will it mend a rift in the realm?

Wednesday, 1 April 2026

RAROTONGA - Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters arrived in Rarotonga on Wednesday afternoon in what appears to be a significant breakthrough in the New Zealand-Cook Islands relationship.

The surprise trip on the Defence Force plane comes less than two weeks after Peters and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown spent time together at Peters’ home in Auckland.

Relations between both countries have been frosty since Brown travelled to China to sign partnership agreements with Beijing last February.

Peters publicly aired the Government’s grievance with Brown, claiming the Cooks’ prime minister had failed to consult New Zealand.

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New Zealand and the self-governing Cook Islands have a special realm relationship whereby New Zealand helps with foreign affairs and defence and provides its people with New Zealand passports.

In exchange, under the New Zealand-Cook Islands 2001 joint declaration, the Cook Islands has an obligation to consult New Zealand on issues of national security.

Or at least that’s Peters’ position; Brown has consistently denied such consultation is required.

The spat has had real consequences for those living in the realm country.

New Zealand hit “pause” on roughly $30 million of funding for the Cook Islands citing a a significant breach of trust in the relationship.

That trust now appears to be showing green shoots: AUT law professor Sione Tekiteki told The Post Peters’ impromptu trip was a “promising” development.

“There’s a pattern emerging, they had an informal meeting here when Mark Brown visited and now off the back of that he’s now visiting the Cook Islands. So it’s very promising in that perspective, particularly where the relationship was about a year ago,” Tekiteki said.

“They weren’t on talking terms. So this is a really good development. Whether they agree to anything in the Cook Islands that remains to be seen but the relationship itself, on a personal level, they sort of seem to have made up that relationship.”

Sticky questions remained about any progress on from a foreign policy perspective, he said.

“The 2001 agreement that the Cook Islands and New Zealand have suggests that they need to consult regularly but it’s ambiguous on the level of consultation and I think the consultation is also a matter of perspective.

“Mark Brown has argued when this issue was elevated last year that when New Zealand signed its own strategic agreement with China back in 2014, the Cook Islands wasn’t consulted.

“That being said, from New Zealand’s perspective geopolitical competition has heightened since 2014 which then requires more consultation. It’s a matter of context and also a matter of perspective and given they’re on different starting points, that’s why it’s become such a contested issue.”

Concrete outcomes aside, Tekiteki said Peters’ trip to the Cook Islands - his first since the dispute - was a significant development in and of itself.

“It’s a message that at the political level they really want to settle or come to some sort of agreement. What that is remains to be seen.”

Peters’ trip to Rarotonga is his first visit to the Cook Islands since February 2024. He returns to Auckland on Thursday.