Stuart Nash will remain a cabinet minister and hold onto his portfolios – at least for now.

The prime minister said he’s been made aware of a further situation involving the embattled Napier MP and as such as opted to demote him to the bottom of the cabinet rankings. He’s also been given a final warning for what now amounts to a third strike.

“In September last year, acting as the local MP for Napier, he contacted a senior official at MBIE to ask him to take a look at an immigration case of a health professional in his electorate,” Hipkins said in a statement.

“In doing so he did not use the established process for Ministers and MPs to advocate in an immigration case.

Minister Nash has assured me there is no personal or other connection between the person in his electorate and him, and he was only intervening to ensure his electorate did not lose a much needed health professional.”

Nevertheless, Hipkins said there is “a well-established process and channel for ministers and MPs to advocate on immigration cases and the Cabinet Manual is clear that ministers should bear in mind that they have the capacity to exercise considerable influence over the public service”.

He added: “I want to be clear that I think the public servants involved in these cases have acted appropriately. This latest instance demonstrates a pattern of behaviour which does not reach the standard I expect from ministers.”

However, Hipkins said it was clear Nash was not acting out of personal gain but instead because of his desire to “get things done” in his portfolios.

“Stuart also speaks in a colloquial manner that often reflects the sentiments of a significant proportion of the community, but he needs to take greater care to ensure that what he says and how he says in upholds the standards expected of a cabinet minister,” said Hipkins.

“We have processes and rules for a reason, and in part that is to avoid the sorts of questions Stuart is now facing.”

The demotion reflected Nash’s “poor judgement on process” along with his “failure to alert” the past instances. “I have repeated that point to him and made clear that any further lapses will result in his dismissal as a minister… As I have said his actions reflect poor judgment, but the specifics of each incident do not warrant dismissal.”

As parliaments around the world continue to grapple with the security concerns of TikTok, it’s been confirmed local MPs will soon be banned from using the app as well.

Newstalk ZB’s revealed that Parliamentary Service-managed phones will not be allowed to have TikTok installed from the end of the month.

“The decision to block the TikTok application has been made based on our own analysis and following discussion with our colleagues across government and internationally,” said the service’s chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero.

“Based on this analysis the service has determined that the risks are not acceptable in the current New Zealand parliament environment.”

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The third and final season of Ted Lasso is this week’s big new release. If you want to remember why you watched it in the first place, it seems to be going out exactly as it came in: whimsically. If you’re reigniting your Apple TV+ subscription for that one, stick around for Extrapolations, a climate change sci-fi drama from Scott Burns with the best cast list in like forever? It goes on and on: Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Kit Harington, Daveed Diggs, Edward Norton, Tobey Maguire, Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Marion Cotillard and Forest Whitaker are all in this thing. Here’s the trailer…

Elsewhere, Netflix follows last week’s MH370 doco launch with another one. Money Shot: The Porn Hub story gets in behind who runs the world’s biggest porn site and finds a very dark side to it all. Amazon Prime has the first season of Donald Glover’s Swarm, a twisted horror about fandom gone very wrong that looks to be borrowing from Get Out and Them’s vibe and intensity.

Elsewhere, Gotham Knights is available for viewing from today but the reviews are awful, with many declaring it far too soapy (“It’s possible to dip into the Batcave once too often,” quipped a CNN wag). Apple TV+ debuts Monster Factory, a docu-series about wrestlers trying to make it into the big leagues. Black Book fans won’t want to miss Stuck (TVNZ+), Dylan Moran’s new couples comedy that, according to this five-star review from The Guardian, is “vintage Moran”.

If you’re heading out to theatres this weekend, Shazam: Fury of the Gods is this week’s big new superhero caper and while reviews have been embargoed until the last moment, many are predicting this will be a big hit. Meanwhile, Meet Me in the Bathroom is an excellent documentary about the rises of New York bands like The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Warning: it also deals with the downsides of fame.

Reviewing your loan structure is a good starting point if you find yourself under financial stress. An ANZ home loan coach can talk to you about the possibility of extending your loan term or switching to an interest only repayment structure for a period of time. If these options are suitable for you, they can talk you through what they might mean over the longer term. The sooner you talk to your bank, the more options they may have available for you.

Find out how ANZ can help with managing your home loan.

ANZ lending criteria, terms, conditions and fees apply. 

A senior minister said the former prime minister “likely” knew that the solicitor-general was considering charging Stuart Nash back in 2020 over comments about an ongoing judicial matter.

Nash, who was police minister in 2020, said the killer of police constable Matthew Hunt should spend a long time in jail – a breach of the requirement for ministers to stay out of court matters.

While PM Chris Hipkins appeared blindsided by this incident when it was brought to light yesterday, questions are now being asked about how much the former prime minister Jacinda Ardern knew (and why no action was taken publicly).

Speaking to Newshub today, minister Michael Wood said he thinks the ex-PM would have known.  “In the normal course of events, I would assume that if the attorney-general became involved in an issue like that, it’s likely that the prime minister would know as well but I can’t say that for sure.”

Back in 2020, Nash was ultimately just given a telling off for his comments.

Nash was shuffled out of the police role during Ardern’s tenure, only to be reinstated earlier this year by Hipkins.

Former National Party leader Todd Muller will quit politics at the upcoming election.

The Bay of Plenty MP announced in a statement this morning that he had reached the time in a job where “you start lacking the enthusiasm and energy you once had”.

“After much reflection and discussion with those close to me and who know me best I have realised I have reached that point,” said Muller. “I will not contest the next election. I cannot recommit to giving the National Party nor my BOP community another full three-year term.”

Muller had previously announced his resignation back in 2021 after it emerged he had been an anonymous source in an article during the tenure of Judith Collins. He later reversed his resignation when Christopher Luxon took over leadership of the National Party, saying he felt “invigorated”.

But in his statement today, Muller said while he believed Luxon and deputy Nicola Willis had “reset the caucus”, he had still opted to leave parliament.

“My journey in politics has been a stimulating, challenging and at times difficult ride,” he continued. “However, I am thankful for it all. I am a changed person through my parliamentary experience, and I hope adversity has broadened my understanding and care for the many forms of exasperation and inspiration that exist in our community.”

Luxon paid tribute to Muller, calling him a deep-thinking and hard-working member of National’s team. “Todd gives 110% of himself to whatever he does. I wish him and his family all the very best for the future,” Luxon said.

From now, Todd McClay will become National’s agriculture spokesperson, with Simon Watts becoming climate change spokesperson, Joseph Mooney taking on the tourism portfolio (currently held by McClay) and Chris Penk will become the spokesperson for cyclone recovery.

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown has embarked on a money saving scheme to plug a $295 million “fiscal black hole” in the council’s finances, but is that really what’s needed? A Better Budget for Auckland’s India Logan-Riley talks with Bernard Hickey in the latest episode of When the Facts Change about the flaws in Brown’s logic and suggests an alternative to the mayor’s belt tightening that doesn’t involve slashing social services.

Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts

The solicitor general had considered prosecuting cabinet minister Stuart Nash for contempt over public comments he made following an arrest in the killing of a police officer in 2020, Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper has revealed. Nash resigned as police minister on Wednesday over a call he made to the police commissioner.

In the earlier instance, Nash told Mike Hosking on air that the police had arrested the man responsible for constable Matthew Hunt’s shooting and he hoped he’d get a long prison sentence. “The case against Eli Epiha hadn’t been completed and the solicitor general took a dim view of Nash’s outburst, saying while they’d decided not to prosecute him they referred the matter to the attorney general to rebuke him, which he did,” Newstalk ZB reports.

While we won’t know for sure whether New Zealand is in a recession for a few more months, the finance minister said its obvious that the economy is “slowing” – and recent weather events are partly to blame.

Yesterday’s GDP figures showed a slump of 0.6%, worse than predictions from most economists. Should the next quarter’s figures reveal another drop and we’ll officially be in a recession.

“We won’t know until we get the figures for the March quarter,” Grant Robertson told Newstalk ZB.

The fact that the Reserve Bank’s predictions were off didn’t surprise the minister, who described economic forecasting as appears “a bit more of an art than a science”. He added that, since Covid, most economic forecasters have really struggled to be able to pin down what’s happening.

“Steven Joyce used to lecture me on this when I was in opposition. A quarter of data you’ve got to be really careful with… annually we’re still in a position where we’re up about 2.2% – that compares pretty well with other countries,” he said.

Asked what Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr should do with the official cash rate as a result, Robertson said that was an independent decision (a phrase that, after the Stuart Nash debacle, takes on additional importance). “This is still part of the overall economic environment that we’re in, the post-Covid hangover,” said Robertson, who stood by the decisions taken by the government during the pandemic.

While New Zealand appears headed for a recession, other countries like the UK are set to emerge from the hangover without the same economic damage. Their finance minister said the country would avoid a recession in 2023 and inflation was expected to plummet.

However, Robertson said New Zealand’s economy was 6.7% bigger than it was before Covid and country’s like the UK had not managed that.