Why India's PM is visiting, and where New Zealand's Foreign Minister won't be

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is coming to New Zealand on Friday 10 July. It's the first visit by an Indian PM in 40 years, and Christopher Luxon has called it a historic moment for the two countries.

There's one notable thing about the visit: Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters won't be here. He's in Singapore and Japan at the time, and some people have asked why. Luxon told reporters on 6 July they were "overthinking it" — he says it's normal for the foreign affairs minister to be overseas during a bilateral visit like this.

Peters' office said his travel was planned months ago, guided by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, and had nothing to do with when Modi was coming.

The trade deal disagreement

The timing is harder to ignore when you look at what's really going on between Peters and Luxon.

Peters has been critical of the India Free Trade Agreement — the biggest part of what Luxon wants to build with India. New Zealand First didn't support the deal. Peters said the agreement would let India bring in more migrants than other countries get, which he saw as unfair. The Trade Minister Todd McClay disagreed with him. So did Immigration Minister Erica Stanford, who warned that Peters' comments could damage New Zealand's relationship with India.

Luxon was blunt. He said Peters "doesn't like free trade agreements" and also criticized his comments about immigrants more broadly. Peters has also worried about what the deal might mean for dairy farmers.

What this looks like

Labour's leader Chris Hipkins said there was "a lot of disagreement" within the government over the trade deal, and that Peters being away was "certainly convenient." He left it at that, but the implication was clear.

Here's the thing: New Zealand First didn't promise to publicly support policies they don't like. But Peters is Foreign Affairs Minister now, and the optics of him being away during one of the biggest visits in years raises a question that neither Luxon nor Peters' office has properly answered: was this a scheduling clash, or was it planned this way?

Luxon's argument makes sense on paper. Prime ministers meet prime ministers; foreign ministers do the supporting work. But the trade deal just passed its first vote in Parliament, Peters publicly opposed it, and he's somewhere else entirely right now. It's the kind of detail that sticks with people.

Modi will be in Auckland for less than two days — from Friday 10 July until Saturday 11 July. For a visit Luxon has put this much political effort into, it's a tight window.