The leak, which began on 28 November 2010, occurred when the website of WikiLeaks – an international new media non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources and news leaks – started to publish classified documents of detailed correspondence – diplomatic cables – between the United States Department of State and its diplomatic missions around the world.
"[3] The diplomatic cables leak reveal that the New Zealand government was spying on the military of nearby Fiji leading up to the 2006 Fijian coup d'état.
[5] Marian Hobbs, New Zealand Labour Party Member of Parliament (1996–2008), was said to thoroughly deserve her nickname of Boo-boo because she had made several diplomatic blunders.
[3] New Zealand's Green Party were considered likely to move further left following the unexpected death of its relatively pragmatic co-leader Rod Donald.
But if the coalition collapsed, for example because of a defection by Foreign Minister and NZ First leader Winston Peters, Labour might have had to make concessions to the Greens to form a new Government.