Simon Bridges’ top 10 most defining moments (Image: Getty Images / Archi Banal)
Simon Bridges’ top 10 most defining moments (Image: Getty Images / Archi Banal)

PoliticsMarch 15, 2022

From slushies to scandals: 10 defining moments of Simon Bridges’ political career

The Bulletin editor
Simon Bridges’ top 10 most defining moments (Image: Getty Images / Archi Banal)
Simon Bridges’ top 10 most defining moments (Image: Getty Images / Archi Banal)

Stewart Sowman-Lund traces the outgoing National MP’s career to choose 10 moments that defined him.

National MP Simon Bridges, who announced today that he’s quitting politics in the coming weeks, has had a political career that’s seen him in and out of government, off and on his party’s front bench, and hanging out with everyone from Prince Charles to a herd of yaks. 

As he prepares to farewell parliament, let’s relive 10 of Bridges’ most defining career moments.

  • When he beat Winston Peters

Bridges’ resignation means a byelection in the Tauranga electorate will be triggered. While the field of candidates is not yet known, one name already being thrown around is that of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. The career politician, who most recently became a favourite of anti-mandate protesters, was the MP for Tauranga between 1984 and 2005. In the following election, Peters attempted to regain his long-standing seat – but was beaten by one Simon Bridges, a fresh-faced candidate for the National Party. Bridges romped home with a more than 11,000 majority and has safely held onto the seat ever since.

  • That angry Campbell Live interview

It’s just something you would never see on 7pm telly any more in this country: a 15-minute slanging match between a junior MP and a senior broadcaster. In 2013, Bridges appeared on Campbell Live (RIP) to discuss deep sea oil drilling. Soon the pair were talking over each other repeatedly and yelling at increasing volume and before too long, Campbell was left with no other option: to pretend he was telling off a child. “I will ask you a question – you answer it. Let’s give that a go,” he said.

  • All the leadership challenges

After John Key’s decision to step down as prime minister in 2016, Bridges was one of several names thrown into the mix as a possible future leader. He ultimately put his name forward for deputy leader but withdrew when it became clear Paula Bennett had the numbers. 

His first shot at the top job came in 2018. When Bill English resigned, Bridges successfully campaigned for the leadership, becoming the first person of Māori descent to serve as the leader of a major political party. It was a tenure that would see the party maintain its high polling, but internal fighting, scandals and leaks, along with the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, saw support for National slip and Bridges was eventually rolled by Todd Muller in May 2020.

But that didn’t stop him! After riding easy through the 2020 election campaign (under Judith Collins, who replaced Todd Muller in July 2020), Bridges’ name soon came up again as a leadership hopeful. In late 2021, after confidence faltered in Judith Collins, Bridges was said to be in the running to be leader yet again. Of course, we all know how that worked out.

  • Slushies! 

In May of 2019, at the height of his tenure as National leader, Bridges stood in parliament and screamed the word “slushies” at the government. It will go down in the annals of history as one of the most memorable, bizarre and meme-worthy moments in New Zealand politics.

I’ll let the video speak for itself.

  • The Jami-Lee Ross leak war

Oh what a time to be a political nerd this was. In August 2018, Bridges was dealing with the repercussions of a leaked document that revealed he had spent over $100,00 on travel and accommodation. That included, reported Tova O’Brien at the time, a BMW Crown limousine tour that took him from Kaitaia to Bluff.

A couple of months later, Bridges announced that National MP Jami-Lee Ross was the leaker of those accounts and said a suspension from the party was possible. That triggered an all-out war, with Ross sending a series of now infamous tweets and slowly beginning to leak material that he said would bring Bridges down.

It didn’t, and Ross would ultimately see out the remainder of the parliamentary term in exile before splintering to co-lead the conspiracy-fuelled party Advance NZ. 

  • Maureen Pugh is ‘fucking useless’

Possibly the most prominent of the Ross leaks, and so notorious it deserves its own entry, was a tape in which Bridges could very clearly be heard describing National MP Maureen Pugh as “fucking useless”.

Pugh has since gone on to be most well known for her ability to survive multiple lightning strikes. 


  • That Covid-19 Facebook post

Somehow, against all odds, the back-and-forth leak war with Jami-Lee Ross and a leaked audio clip of him calling one of his own MPs “fucking useless” was not enough to bring down Simon Bridges as National leader.

But in April 2020, as Covid-19 continued to dominate the political landscape, a simple Facebook post threatened to end Bridges’ leadership immediately. The post criticised the government for keeping New Zealand in alert level four and looked to Australia as an exemplar to follow. 

An extract from Bridges’ Facebook post

Bridges survived in the National leadership for about a month after this moment, before being rolled by Todd Muller.

  • Yaks

It wasn’t long after his leadership ended that the image rehabilitation began.

Bridges, looking more zen than I have ever been in my life, shared a video on social media of him walking side by side with a baby yak. He looked peaceful, happy – hell, he looked ruggedly handsome in those shorts and gumboots. This was not the man who had endured scandal after scandal, who had been taped calling an MP “useless”. No, this was a man who was happier than any of us and who, feasibly, could be prime minister one day. 

Speaking to The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire at the time, Bridges said: “I now feel a bit of performance anxiety around social media posts. There hasn’t been a whole lot of thought going into them. But with Baby Yak taking off, I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. I did have a Mouse Town lined up, my niece’s pet mouse has a series of tunnels and things.” 

  • The sudden demotion and the Jacqui Dean joke

Suddenly we’re back in the room, the yaks are no more. It’s late 2021 and Simon Bridges has been shockingly and suddenly demoted from all his portfolios by one Judith Collins. Why? Over claims Bridges had made an offensive joke in the presence of MP Jacqui Dean, several years earlier. The joke was reportedly “in relation to old wives’ tales about how to conceive a girl” and though Bridges apologised to Dean at the time, she was upset, though later said she “took no pleasure in being caught up in a political power-play”.

Bridges ultimately regained his portfolios and moved into the number three spot after Christopher Luxon became party leader.

  • Voting against conversion therapy

Simon Bridges was one of just eight MPs, all from National, to vote against banning conversion therapy earlier this year. He had been a vocal opponent to the proposal since its inception, previously calling it an attack on free speech.

“I personally do have a wider concern. That is freedom of speech,” he told Newshub in early 2021. “That is in a liberal society, in a tolerant society, we have been very tolerant of different views. We are, with this, moving down a track to a situation where it is actually cancel culture. 

“If we don’t like it we are going to criminalise it and I do worry about that.”

The entire National Party voted against the bill at first reading, under Judith Collins’ leadership, and it’s believed the conservative branch of the party (that included Bridges) may have swung the vote. The party switched to making it a conscience vote at the second and third readings.

  • Leaving politics with no warning

We finish where we began: the bombshell announcement of earlier today. Simon Bridges will be leaving politics in the coming days or weeks. 

It may seem like a cop-out to put a resignation on a list of most defining moments, but I’d say the opposite. He’s done a John Key, left at the most opportune moment, with no scandal brewing (at least, so far).

Keep going!
Simon Bridges (Photo: Getty Images; additional design Archi Banal)
Simon Bridges (Photo: Getty Images; additional design Archi Banal)

OPINIONPoliticsMarch 15, 2022

Simon Bridges, what’s going on here?

Editor-at-large
Simon Bridges (Photo: Getty Images; additional design Archi Banal)
Simon Bridges (Photo: Getty Images; additional design Archi Banal)

After 14 years the former National leader has announced he’s quitting politics in the coming weeks. It leaves many people scratching their heads, Chris Luxon in a pickle, and the prospect of an intriguing byelection, writes Toby Manhire.

Haggard and cynical husks of humanity that we political observers are, the reflex collective thought at news Simon Bridges is suddenly quitting politics was: what’s the scandal and who has it? After all, the party he’s poured his life into is on firm footing for the first time in years. He’s forgoing an extremely good chance of becoming finance minister. The decision landed out of the blue, and, of all days, on the anniversary of the Christchurch attacks. And he’s triggering a byelection in Tauranga. The first question at his noon press conference – announced at 11.44am – summed it up neatly: “Mr Bridges, what’s going on here?”

But unlike, say, when Nick Smith exited stage right with the spectre of a damning scoop hanging over him (albeit one that never materialised), Bridges categorically rejected any suggestion that any skeleton was limbering up in the closet. “Absolutely not,” he said to the suggestion there might be a scandal afoot. “There just isn’t.” If there had been something like that brewing it would only have made him want to stay and fight, he said, and if the look on his face after Judith Collins attempted to snooker him out of his job last year over old yarns he’d spun around sex techniques is anything to go by, I believe it.

There may yet be something he’s not telling us. It could be a private, family matter. Or it could be something to do with the “significant commercial opportunities” and “maybe a media project or two”. Pressed on what those might be, he’d say only, “I like to keep things interesting.” Maybe he’s going to read the weather for Tova O’Brien. 

Paradoxically, the fact that National is stronger than it has been for a long time, which owes a good bit to Bridges’ role alongside Chris Luxon, may have made him less inclined to stick around. Two years ago he was furious at his colleagues’ decision to roll him as leader amid the maelstrom of the early Covid response, and as Todd Muller and then Judith Collins plumbed the depths, his feelings he deserved another shot only steeled. Just hours before a caucus vote on the leadership in November last year, Bridges stood aside and supported Luxon. He must have at least in the back of his mind figured that if the former Air New Zealand CEO and political novice wasn’t up to it, his turn might come around again.

But all that is conjecture. In the absence of any obvious smoke, let alone fire, we should take him at his word. “My reasons that I give you are the reasons that are real,” he said today. “In the end, we all, in careers and lives, make significant decisions where we weigh the pros and cons … For me, at 45, 14 years in parliament, it’s a good time for National, it’s a good time for me, and it’s a good time for my family.” Love or loathe his policy positions, Bridges was never one to shirk debate, and in recent years especially evinced tremendous candour and good humour. New Zealand politics, I think, will miss him.

After his defenestration, Bridges enjoyed months out in the wilderness, wandering around in Roxy Music T-shirts patting yaks, reflecting on his life and career and writing it all down in National Identity (a book that is genuinely thoughtful and funny), which gave him a taste of a life in which your brain is not permanently tethered to politics. He describes that period in his book as a “personal renaissance”, in which he underwent a “remarkable rehabilitation from purgatory as a likeable, relatable human being”. If he fancies a bit more of that, who can blame him?

What it means for National

Is it really, as Bridges said of his decision today, “a good time for National”? Certainly it’s better than in an election year, but a could-be-worse time is not the same thing as a good time. “It’s never perfect,” Bridges conceded, “but I think National has momentum, as we saw in the poll last week, it’s got wind in its sails.”

There’s another way of looking at that, however. Yes, the National boat – and we know how the party loves a maritime metaphor – has finally got wind in its sails, but only after wallowing, becalmed in the doldrums for an age. It’s way too soon to mess with the navigation. In the days after he became leader, Luxon travelled to Tauranga to announce Bridges would be his finance guy. “Simon will play a central and critical role in our leadership team, and he and I will work closely together,” he said. “Simon will be an exceptional finance and infrastructure minister in the next National government come 2023.” At least part of that is now out of the question.

An absolutely critical source of the momentum that was reflected in National beating Labour in a 1News/Kantar poll for the first time since the pandemic began has been Bridges and Luxon hammering away as one about inflation and the cost of living. It is a truism of New Zealand politics that National is strongest when it’s strong on the economy. Now Grant Robertson, who has begun to give the impression of having been finance spokesperson forever, can add another name to the list he likes to enumerate in parliament of all the finance opponents he’s seen off. 

If there is a silver lining for National, it is in moving forwards, insofar as Bridges is associated with enmities that plagued the pre-Luxon caucus. It’s a smudgy kind of silver, however. Todd Muller is still there after all. So is Judith Collins.

To keep momentum and forestall a return of internal squabbling and embarrassing leaking, to stop the public mind wandering back to the bad old days, Luxon needs to move fast to appoint a new finance spokesperson. The likeliest pick is Chris Bishop, which would entail, presumably, handing on the Covid response role to someone else. Soon he’d be dealing with a reshuffle, which was hardly his plan for the fourth month of leadership. And they’ll have to fill another role quick-smart, too: a candidate for the electorate of Tauranga.

A byelection in Tauranga

Very often a byelection is an opportunity to embarrass the party of government. But not this time. It’s true that Labour won the party vote in 2020, and Jan Tinetti did run Bridges within a couple of thousand votes. But 2020 was a freakish election. No one will expect a Labour candidate to win a byelection. 

In truth, probably neither of the main parties relish the prospect. But byelections do have a way of playing political lightning rod. While much of the sting – and the political energy – of the occupation at parliament grounds will very likely have dissipated, along with the vaccine mandates, by the 2023 campaign, it seems inevitable that those forces will be felt in some fashion on the Tauranga hustings. 

Tauranga Byelection sounds like a cocktail made by Winston Peters. After his big day out at the Wellington occupation, does he try to ride a wave of disaffected New Zealanders and their conspiracy theorist friends in the weeks to come? Another former National MP from Northland, Matt King, has confirmed he plans to set up a party and stand again for parliament. Billy TK? The Tamakis? And that’s just scratching the surface. We’re going to need a bigger yak. 

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