A question from the crowd at Wednesday night's public meeting with Labour Party leader Andrew Little was answered today with the announcement he is nominating NZ First Leader Winston Peters for a seat on the Security and Intelligence Committee.

The question from the crowd at the Cornerstone Pub last night was ‘would Labour work with NZ First?'

Nominating Winston Peters, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Clarke Labour Government, is seen as a big deal says a Labour Party spokesman today.

'Normally these (S&I committee seats) are just for the main opposition party, but in this instance we have nominated Winston showing that despite our Memorandum of Understanding with the Green Party we are also very keen to work with Winston,” says the spokesman.

'And this is a good example of it. This is a very important committee at Parliament and to have Winston the former foreign Affairs Minister on that is a pretty big deal.”

The Security and Intelligence Committee is a cross party committee that discusses the international security of New Zealand and the country's connections with the world.

The Labour party is not making a pre-election arrangement with NZ First, says the spokesman.

Andrew Little was in Tauranga when today's announcement was made, and is flying to Whangarei near Winston Peters' Northland electorate this afternoon to continue his state of the regions tour.

During a visit to the SunLive offices, Andrew says he will be nominating new Mount Albert MP Jacinda Adern as his deputy leader on Tuesday. Former deputy Annette King announced on Wednesday she was stepping down.

'Annette's done a lot of time in parliament, and she's been thinking about her future, about whether she wanted another term. She made it clear she didn't want to stand in Rongotai again, so we have got a new candidate in Rongotai.”

Annette was going to take a list seat, but that Labour list hasn't yet been prepared, and following Jacinda's win in Mt Albert she thought 'now was the time to get out of politics altogether”, adds Andrew.

Annette is a long-serving MP for Rongotai and Labour's health spokesperson who's been in politics for about 30 years. During her career she's contested ten elections and served under eight leaders.

She says the one thing she really wanted to achieve before she retired from politics was to ensure a successor was confirmed in the seat of Rongotai, and that is Wellington City deputy mayor Paul Eagle.