Fa’anānā Efeso Collins died yesterday age 49, leaving behind his wife Fia and two daughters. His death brought quiet to parliament and a torrent of tributes, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

Fa’anānā Efeso Collins, 1974 – 2024

There are days in this job where I’m working hard to string things together, filling space with rapidly acquired interpretations, summaries and my own words. Today is not one of those days. Pointing to the words of others following the shocking and profoundly sad death of Green MP Fa’anānā Efeso Collins yesterday is all that’s required. From those who knew and worked with Collins and those who’ve summarised his life and death for the wider public, the words are sincere and dignified exemplars of our capacity to craft meaning and publicly share and express emotion. Collins was a master of words in the most oratorical sense of the word, but, as RNZ’s Jo Moir writes, he also had an “ability to connect people and at times break tension with just a few words.”

Mad Chapman has penned an extraordinary obituary for Collins, sharing a defining anecdote about his brief stint at Auckland Grammar. For Chapman, the instant familiarity felt between Pacific people doing public-facing jobs made the bridge to familiarity very short when they met. She notes he spent his life being a bridge between Pacific people and the whole of Aotearoa, sharing that as his goal with her at Waitangi two weeks ago. I observed that interview at Waitangi while queuing for fry bread. Collins wasn’t looking around for the next chat as people of status sometimes do but looked to be deep in conversation.

Marked as a future leader, motivated by his kids

Collins first emerged as a student politician. He appeared on Holmes in 1999, making the case for joining student associations at a time when many were shifting away from compulsory membership. Our politics podcast, Gone by Lunchtime, was mid-record when the news broke yesterday. Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas spend the last part of the pod talking about Collins. Thomas, who first met Collins at university, describes him as exuding charisma and being “marked out as a future leader” even back then. Collins became an Auckland councillor and ran for mayor of the city before entering parliament for the Greens just four months ago. The Herald’s Simon Wilson spent time on the mayoral campaign trail with Collins. He makes many observations in his tribute, but Collins’s love for his kids and his motivation for being involved in politics stand out right now. Read in concert with this watch, a 2022 Tagata Pasifika interview after his family received death threats, it’s clear his family was his “whole world”. Stuff’s Steve Kilgallon also writes beautifully about Collins, noting his acute awareness of being a big brown guy with a preference for hoodies and basketball singlets who dressed carefully in public because “if you’ve got to dress a certain way for people to feel okay, and have a conversation, that’s the reality of it”. My husband and Collins talked about that as the two big brown guys in matching linen jackets at an event before Christmas. Kilgallon notes that one of his primary sources of discomfort on the mayoral campaign trail was “how those who opposed him didn’t share his measured approach to the debate.”

A solemn day at parliament

This morning, The Spinoff’s Joel MacManus joins Moir and others in the press gallery to provide a unique and moving account of a solemn day at parliament. “For one day, parliament felt like a different world, with everyone remembering just how fleeting and vulnerable life is,” he writes. MacManus quotes Green party co-leader James Shaw, who fronted a sombre press pack yesterday, just 90 minutes after finding out his colleague and friend had died. “It’s in moments like this where you see parliament, and parliamentarians, at their best. There’s a real scrap going on at the moment between the government and opposition over a number of issues. Everyone said this is bigger than any of us,” he said. For those wondering about what happens at parliament after this rare event, Stewart Sowman-Lund has a walkthrough of parliamentary protocol and convention.

Maiden speech given just last week

To end, a reflection from Grant Robertson. On Instagram, Robertson wrote that Collins looked directly at him while giving his maiden speech last week. “He was talking about his journey on rainbow issues. It was an important moment between us, that I will treasure. The speech is well worth your time, and an indication of what we have all lost.” For a time, Collins’s stance on marriage equality, informed by his Christian faith, created distance between him and others. He was public about the understanding he went on to develop and bridged the distance by acknowledging those hurt by his previous stance. Collins’s grip on the power of words to make ourselves understood and broaden our understanding of each other is on full display in his maiden speech. Yesterday, that speech became something else and now stands as part of his legacy. It is worth your time.

Grant Robertson’s resignation puts Barbara Edmonds, Labour’s new finance spokesperson, front and centre of Labour’s post-election reset efforts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

Farewelling ‘the most captivating debater of his political generation’

Grant Robertson’s resignation had been picked for a while. As Toby Manhire writes in a great overview of his qualities and career, “the only question around his departure from parliament was how soon.” After serving as an MP for 15 years and finance minister for six, he leaves at the end of March and will be remembered as “the most captivating debater of his political generation.” As a high profile politician, tributes and bids to sum up Roberton’s legacy aren’t hard to come by this morning. The Herald’s Derek Cheng writes that “while his value to Labour – not only as a policy wonk, but also as a polished political salesman – is unquestionable, his success as a politician is less black and white.”

More Robertson reading

• Stewart Sowman-Lund: Grant Robertson’s career in nine moments 
• RNZ’s Jo Moir: Grant Robertson, the consummate political support partner

Opponents offer thanks and a few brickbats

Prime minister Christopher Luxon and finance minister Nicola Willis demured from reflecting on a previous moniker they’d bestowed on Robertson when they called him the “worst finance minister of all time”. Instead, Luxon thanked him for his service to the public and Willis reflected on his role as her sparring partner in the house. Act leader David Seymour and NZ First leader Winston Peters were less complimentary. Seymour acknowledged his humour but said they could also rely on Robertson’s provision of “great opportunities to point out what the Labour Party was doing wrong. Grant Robertson’s legacy, unfortunately, is $100 billion worth of debt.” Peters also zoned in on the debt issue saying “I think he’s well fitted, he’s going off to a university that’s $100 million in debt, having left this country in debt, so he’s well practiced as to what he should be able to do now. But I wish him all the best.”

Robertson’s new gig in tertiary education

While politicking amid farewell might stick in a few people’s craws, Peters’s comments provide a segue into Robertson’s new reality. He is not choosing to go quietly into a quiet life and steps into his new role as vice chancellor of Otago University in July. Just yesterday, news broke that a Tertiary Education Commission briefing warns that some universities are at risk of running out of money to pay their bills this year. The University of Otago’s deficit is expected to rise to $29m this year. Robertson joins a couple of other former Labour ministers who have stepped into roles at the university. David Clark was appointed registrar at the university last year, and Clare Curran is a member of the University Council.

Where does this leave Labour?

Robertson also joins a number of former Labour and Green ministers who either did not contest the 2023 election, have left since or are leaving. Resignations after election defeats aren’t unusual, nor is talk of a decline in “bench strength” for parties that lose many senior MPs after an election. Casting back to November 2022 when Jacinda Ardern was prime minister (shockingly only 15 months ago), of the 26 people who held ministerial portfolios inside and outside cabinet (including Marama Davidson and Jame Shaw), 13 remain. As Stuff’s Bridie Witton reports this morning, Neale Jones, a former Labour chief of staff expects more changes before the next election with “new ideas, some rethinking and maybe some new faces”, but did not think this extended to changing the leader. Labour eschewed the traditional January caucus retreat and will meet in March. Former Labour minister Andrew Little thinks it’s time for the party to “hunker down” and sort out its priorities as it reorients from government to opposition.

Who is Barbara Edmonds?

Witton reports that those on the left see Labour’s new finance spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds, as a key part of that reorientation. As the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan writes, two hours after being appointed to the role, Edmonds was in Question Time responding to criticism of Labour’s Covid response from Willis. Edmonds is the first woman and first Pasifika person to hold the role and was elected in 2020 to the Mana seat. She is, by all accounts, highly regarded. A former tax lawyer, she was seconded from the IRD to work with Judith Collins in 2016. As Coughlan notes, “She is known by some in the tax world as a believer in the broad base, low rate orthodoxy that underpins New Zealand’s tax system.” As RNZ reports, she was named by Luxon as the one Labour MP he would like to have on his team. The Post’s Luke Malpass notes that she has only been an MP for one term. The departure of Aupito William Sio leaves Edmonds, alongside Carmel Sepuloni and Jenny Salesa, as one of three experienced Pasifika MPs carrying the weight of repair and rebuild with Pasifika voters after the election. As Mad Chapman wrote at the time, turnout was particularly bad in the strong Pacific electorates, suggesting Labour’s enduring bond with Pasifika voters is waning. Edmonds also has the honour of being the photographer behind the shirtless vaccination photo of Stuart Nash that has appeared too many times on The Spinoff and was brandished by Nash himself during his valedictory speech last year.