With Judith Collins and Shane Reti on their way out of government, the PM is rearranging portfolios for likely his final time before the election, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
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Predictions, please
Christopher Luxon will today announce his long-awaited cabinet reshuffle, expected since Judith Collins announced in January she would leave to head the Law Commission; Shane Reti calling time on his political career last month created a second vacancy. As Henry Cooke and Luke Malpass report in The Post, today’s reshuffle – time still tba – comes days after a weekend meeting of Auckland ministers leaked into the public sphere, prompting another round of leadership speculation. That chatter was swiftly quietened by reporting that it was in fact a normal pre-cabinet meeting, and by Luxon reasserting himself at Monday’s fuel crisis media briefing.
On the reshuffle itself, Chris Penk appears to be the near-universal frontrunner to enter cabinet. RNZ’s Jo Moir notes he is widely expected to take on defence, which he knows well as associate minister. James Meager is the other name in the frame, partly to address the shortage of South Island cabinet representation. Gone By Lunchtime’s Ben Thomas, posting on X, tips both for cabinet roles, with Cameron Brewer and Catherine Wedd becoming outside-cabinet ministers. But he predicts Luxon will keep the reshuffle “v limited”, noting that “if you’re beset by leadership speculation u don’t needlessly unbalance caucus”.
The hardest call
The trickiest appointment is attorney-general. The role is traditionally held by a lawyer, though it is not a legal requirement. In her paywalled NZ Herald column, Audrey Young names Chris Bishop as her preference – he has a law degree and “the intellect to win respect in the role quickly” – but acknowledges Bishop couldn’t take it without shedding at least one of housing or infrastructure, given his already exceptional workload. However the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan (paywalled) thinks that, rather than picking up the plum job, Bishop is likely to be one of the day’s losers. “With Bishop said to be behind last year’s embryonic coup, Luxon may choose to make an example of him. The question then isn’t so much whether Bishop will lose a portfolio, but which ones.”
Young’s next pick is Paul Goldsmith, who has filled in for Collins so often on her overseas trips that he knows its demands well. She is definite on one name that she believes should not get the role: Winston Peters. Despite having reportedly sought the attorney-general role during coalition negotiations, his experience of the law has been “not as a lawyer … but as a litigant, perhaps the most litigious MP in the modern parliament.”
The Chatterton controversy
The reshuffle arrives alongside a simmering dispute over National’s candidate selection for Papakura, the safe Auckland seat vacated by Collins. As Thomas Coughlan and colleagues report in the Herald, the selection was won on the first ballot by Emma Chatterton, a Wellington-based staffer for Erica Stanford who previously ran against Chris Hipkins in Remutaka in 2023. Multiple sources told the Herald they felt Chatterton had been advantaged, with Stanford accused of campaigning on her behalf – an allegation Stanford flatly denied.
Collins, for her part, dismissed the allegations as “a really stupid thing for anyone to say” and stated she had played no part in the selection.” Current list MP Nancy Lu, the other main contender, also said she believed the process was “fair”.
The episode has nonetheless added to a broader unease in the Auckland caucus. As the Herald notes, with National polling around 30%, many of its seats in the city are at risk – especially those snatched from Labour in the 2023 rout.
A company restructure, actually
As Luxon told a taken aback Tova O’Brien this week, he believes his job is “the CEO” of the government. Alert to the PM’s psychological needs, Hayden Donnell has helpfully reframed today’s reshuffle as a business org chart restructure.
In state-owned company Government NZ, Winston Peters is obviously board chair (“He made the initial call to hire the company’s CEO and maintains a key oversight role”); David Seymour, who himself has acknowledged he has “disproportionate influence” in the government, is both CFO and board member; and Bishop is chief operations officer, responsible for “roughly 70% of Government NZ’s operations”.
Judith Collins, meanwhile, occupies the HR manager role, dispensing “sage advice on matters such as whether it’s good to be leader of the National party. The answer, as it turns out, is no.” For her replacement, Donnell proposes Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey, a qualified counsellor, noting that “going by the latest polling, that may come in handy after November 7”. Read the story here.
