Nash’s career is over after being sacked by the prime minister but questions about outsider access to cabinet decisions and perceptions of influence remain, 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.
The last straw
Stuart Nash was sacked last night from all his remaining ministerial portfolios. An email obtained by Stuff revealed Stuart Nash emailed two business figures detailing disagreements among ministers in 2020 when cabinet was debating a commercial rent relief package. Nash was small business minister at the time. It was a clear breach of the cabinet manual which states “discussion at cabinet and cabinet committee meetings is informal and confidential”. Nash was already on his final warning for previously breaching the cabinet manual. Hipkins was made aware of the email at 5pm last night, spoke to Nash, the cabinet office, notified the Governor General and by 7pm was on the tiles at parliament to confirm he had rejected Nash’s offer to resign and had sacked him as a minister. Hipkins also revealed last night that the business figures Nash emailed were donors to Nash’s campaign but was quick to say neither of them had done anything wrong.
David Seymour: “he’s just unbelievably hapless.”
This morning, Stuff’s Luke Malpass paints Nash not as a crook, but as something of a hapless figure who just didn’t know the rules. Malpass quotes Act party leader David Seymour who said “I’m just reflecting a bit more in sorrow than anger that you’ve got this guy who – I’ve known Stuart for 10 years or so – he’s not a malicious person, but he’s just unbelievably hapless. There’s much worse people who are actually malicious, venal and deceitful. He’s not any of those things. He just doesn’t know the rules.”
No byelection
Seymour was more reflective and pragmatic than National leader Christopher Luxon last night. Luxon called on Nash to resign from Parliament immediately, triggering a byelection. Luxon said the “crime” was “akin to insider trading”. Asked whether Luxon’s demand was hypocritical given National’s criticism of government spending, Seymour said his concern “was less about the roughly $1.2m needed for a byelection but the time it would take given the proximity of the general election.” A byelection would only be triggered if Nash didn’t vacate his seat within six months of a general election. RNZ asked Nash “if he planned on sticking around in the Napier seat” last night. He replied, confirming he would and that there would be no byelection.
Issue not done and dusted for Hipkins
Megan Woods, David Parker and Meka Whaitiri will pick up Nash’s portfolios until permanent replacements can be found. As the Herald’s Claire Trevett explains (paywalled), the issue won’t be done and dusted. A probe into whether there were further incidents of those outside the cabinet having access to information on cabinet decisions should be done and “the public also needs to be assured that ministers aren’t lobbying for their mates or donors around the cabinet table.” Newsroom’s Jo Moir agrees saying that it’s highly likely some sort of wider investigation will be needed to ensure there haven’t been any other situations where confidential cabinet information has been leaked and used for personal gain. “The problem for the prime minister is that the sacking doesn’t erase those perceptions of influence, and it is unclear how many other instances of similar behaviour there may have been in the five years Nash had been a minister,” she writes.