Australia's former foreign minister and New South Wales premier, Bob Carr, announced that he plans to sue New Zealand's deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, for allegations about Carr's closeness to China as discussion about Aukus heats up.
On Thursday morning, Peters called Carr "nothing more than a Chinese puppet" on the national radio RNZ.
Carr voiced his disapproval of the agreement during an April visit to Wellington, calling it "bullshit" and praising New Zealand's foreign policy for not being as "gullible to the Americans" as Australia's.
Peters said New Zealand was still "a long way" away from joining pillar two in an address to parliament on Wednesday night, partly because it had not yet received an invitation.
He responded to Carr's criticism on Thursday morning with a series of interviews in which he was asked about it and then launched an extraordinary broadside.
"What on earth does he think he's doing walking into our country and telling us what to do?" Peters told RNZ. He added that they would no more do that in Australia than he should do here.
Carr declared that these remarks were "entirely defamatory" and that he would be pursuing legal action in a statement provided to the Post.
In a statement to the Guardian, Peter's office said that Carr has threatened to sue and that the minister would address questions if he receives formal notification of such action.
Speaking with Carr at the Labour-aligned, anti-Aukus conference in April, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark told RNZ that Peters had "seriously defamed" Carr.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has urged the prime minister, Christopher Luxon, to remove Peters. Hipkins told the press that his allegations against Carr, a senior and well-respected politician, were unacceptable.
