4 Sep 2013

John Key says NZ views Fiji's constitution as a positive step

6:02 am on 4 September 2013

New Zealand's Prime Minister says his government wants to work with Fiji to help it towards elections next year.

John Key is in the Marshall Islands for the annual Pacific Islands Forum, from which Fiji is suspended.

He says Fiji will be discussed by the leaders as it inches towards elections next year.

Mr Key says New Zealand views the new constitution as a positive step even if it's not perfect; in particular, the provision giving a pardon for anyone involved in past coups.

"There is one or two things like the immunity that's been offered to the current regime, that is part of that constitution. From New Zealand's point of view we could sit back and criticise every point of it. But in the end it's actually about tomorrow and not really about yesterday, I think I would rather accept immunity and get as close as I can to a free and fair election and worry too much about the past."

New Zealand's Prime Minister, John Key.