National and New Zealand First at odds again over India Free Trade Agreement

Analysis - National and New Zealand First are again at odds over the India trade deal, this time over what a briefing says about migration, but they do agree it will remain secret - for now.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters performed something of a rhetorical reversal in Parliament on Thursday during the first reading of the legislation giving effect to the India Free Trade Agreement signed earlier this year in New Delhi.

Having previously warned against the perils of the "bad deal" being "far too generous" to India particularly on immigration, his speech on Thursday accused National of covertly restricting it.

Peters told Parliament his coalition partners were planning "special, discriminatory, targeted restrictions just for Indians" but were trying to keep it secret.

"We told the New Zealand people that [the deal] would mean open-slather immigration from India to New Zealand. But the National Party has just changed its course - no doubt due to poor polling - and they have done so covertly.

"Their officials have even discussed the importance of not announcing these changes for the fear of the Indian reaction. This is bad faith."

It was an argument - coming from the Foreign Minister, too - that hinged on the reputational hit New Zealand could take from imposing discriminatory immigration restrictions on Indians compared to other nations that had lowered trade barriers.

But asked on Morning Report to produce the evidence - a briefing he was reading from in Parliament - he said he was "not going to be caught like that".

"That would be... acting outside Cabinet rules".

NZ First rejected RNZ's requests for the document to be provided, saying it would need to come from National.

Peters argued raising the matter in Parliament was not a breach because: "this discussion yesterday was about what's in the documents".

"How can you possibly in a first-world democracy that's been going since 1854 have a debate when the details are being kept from the people in the Parliament itself?" he said.

"I saw the Labour Party spokesperson got up yesterday having no idea what she was talking about - not quite her fault at all - I saw the ACT Party member speaking who had no idea what she was talking about - not her fault at all."

Peters indicated his staff had received the documents the previous week, on perhaps Thursday or Friday.

But it remained unclear who provided them and how.

Peters' reference to Cabinet confidentiality rules suggest that what he referred to in Parliament as "a briefing from officials and consequent decisions made by the Minister of Immigration" is a Cabinet paper.

The response from Trade Minister Todd McClay was strong repudiation, saying not only was Peters wrong, he was "promoting misinformation for the sake of getting votes".

If McClay was right, provision of the document would surely clear the matter up. It would seem to be in his interests to provide it - but requests for it from National ministers have so far come up short.

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford's office rebuffed requests for comment, saying McClay was the spokesperson on the matter and the request for the document to be provided would be lodged under the Official Information Act.

While OIA requests technically can be provided earlier than the statutory 20-working-day timeframe, that's rare in practice, and if the document is as sensitive as Peters has suggested it may not be provided at all.

Alternatively it could represent yet-to-be-announced government policy, but that would surely fall afoul of the Cabinet confidentiality rules and therefore prevent Peters' comments in the House, particularly given the FTA retains the ability for the government to change migration settings.

The interview revealed Peters had yet to speak to National leader and coalition partner Prime Minister Christopher Luxon about the matter, the elder statesman saying Luxon "felt free to attack me yesterday on the very matter".

The pettiness of that stance does little to repudiate National campaign chair Simeon Brown's characterisation of their smaller partners as squabbling children, but the bigger party engaging in the same kind of tit-for-tat ends up making them looking more like a bullying older sibling than the parent.

With neither party being willing to produce proof that what they're saying is right it is hard for the public to judge the merits of either argument.

The situation mirrors the confusion that reigned over Peters' previous initial criticism of the trade deal as the full text remained hidden from public view for months (as is normal for trade deals).

"I've had enough of this duplicity for the last six months," Peters bemoaned on Morning Report.

The average voter may well have had enough of it too, to say nothing of the four-and-a-half months of campaigning yet to come.