The Prime Minister is under fire for making what appears to be a crass joke about fugitive killer Phillip John Smith while attending an APEC summit in Beijing.

Mr Key told reporters that he would let the Chilean President know someone from New Zealand could be in Chile that she may not want to invite round for lunch.

So how will John Key explain his lapse?

“Look, actually, at the end of the day there are a range of views on jokes about murderer paedophiles.“

“This guy may not be my cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy a cup of tea, or even lunch, although obviously, actually, we’d like to make sure that his food and beverages were consumed in an appropriate environment, such as a prison.”

“This was a specific warning to the Chilean leader about an identifiable threat involving the poisoning of tea by Islamic State sympathisers from New Zealand. No, I am not at liberty to discuss the matter, because I never discuss operational intelligence issues, so you’ll have to trust me. But we will be proposing a number of law changes to expand the powers of our security agencies to spy on ordinary New Zealanders, in order to protect the public from tea-related threats.”

“No, you’ve got it all wrong. I wasn’t even talking about Phillip Smith. I was talking about another New Zealander in South America at the moment: David Farrar.”

“If you look at the facts you’ll see that Labour had nine long years to come up with a funnier joke about child molesting killers, but they still haven’t come up with one. Nine long years!”

“I’m disappointed by the reaction, actually. We focus-grouped the shit out of that joke, and we got a very positive reaction to it.”

“I would never laugh about something so terrible and tragic. No, I was laughing at a joke about homosexuals Vladimir Putin told me just a few minutes ago.”