Wellington -
US officials tried to stop a New Zealand minister attending a screening of anti-war film “Fahrenheit 9/11” in 2004 and complained to the prime minister's office, according to leaked papers.
US diplomats in Wellington called then-environment minister Marian Hobbs' support for the Michael Moore documentary - a damning assessment of US foreign policy - a “potential fiasco” in a leaked diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
The cable said the US embassy's deputy head of mission in Wellington contacted the office of the then-prime minister Helen Clark to “shed some light” on Hobbs' actions only to be told her staffers knew nothing about it.
The official then called Hobbs' office but her staff refused to put him through to the minister, according to the cable posted on the website of British newspaper the Guardian.
The cable characterised Hobbs as gaffe-prone, saying “there's a reason this particular minister is known as 'Boo-Boo' Hobbs” and said the-then-ambassador Charles Swindells would make his displeasure known to Clark.
“It is apparent to us that neither the minister nor anyone else in the Labour government seems to have thought there was anything wrong with a senior minister hosting such an event,” it said.
“Ambassador (Swindells) will use a scheduled meeting with the Prime Minister to...remind her that we would really rather not get dragged into internal NZ political issues.”
One of Hobbs' staffers at the time, Grant Robertson, now an opposition Labour member of parliament, said the screening went ahead as scheduled.
“I can't say I remember anything about the US involvement...the movie screening went ahead and Marian went along and I think it was a pretty successful event,” he told TV3 on Thursday.
Opposition leader Phil Goff, who was foreign minister in Clark's left-leaning government, said Swindells only became ambassador because he was a contributor to then US president George W Bush's campaign.
“It's the norm for the Americans to appoint ambassadors that aren't professionals...Charles I think really suffered from a lack of knowledge and a lack of understanding of how countries work and what they do,” he told reporters.
“He had his job because he's obviously a big contributor to the Republican Party. He made the assumption because he thought about the world in a particular way other people might as well.”
The US embassy in Wellington would not comment on details of the leaked document but said diplomatic cables reflected “internal day-to-day analysis and candid assessments that feed the governments' foreign relations deliberations”.
“These cables are often preliminary and incomplete expressions of foreign policy, and they should not be seen as having standing on their own or as representing US policy,” it told news agency NZPA. - Sapa-AFP