The easy part of Chris Luxon’s shadow cabinet reshuffle is done with Simon Bridges ushered in as the new finance spokesperson. Political editor Jo Moir looks at the candidates for the other big jobs and how the National leader will pick them.
As soon as Simon Bridges announced he was pulling out of the race and backing Chris Luxon as leader it was a done deal that he had secured the finance role.
Bridges could have contested the race and got some support – and even while it probably wouldn’t have been enough to give him the win it would have deprived Luxon of a clean victory.
How the leadership is won is important in politics and Luxon knows that, so when he and Bridges spoke on Tuesday morning the finance portfolio and number three ranking would have been agreed, even if it wasn’t said out loud.
Bridges has the smarts and fire in his belly to put up a good fight against Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who has had an easy run of late with neither Michael Woodhouse nor Andrew Bayly managing to get any runs on the board.
Getting rid of the shadow treasurer title Bayly has failed to shine in is an incredibly sensible move on every count.
Nobody – not even the National Party caucus – understood the various responsibilities divided between shadow treasurer and Woodhouse’s finance portfolio.
Luxon announced Bridges’ positions in his stomping ground of Tauranga on Thursday, but a serious school accident for one of Bridges’ sons meant he couldn’t be at the press conference.
That left Luxon to deliver the news, and repeat over and over what good friends they are.
Bridges has the smarts and fire in his belly to put up a good fight against Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who has had an easy run of late with neither Michael Woodhouse nor Andrew Bayly managing to get any runs on the board.
Whether they’re good friends or not doesn’t matter because at this point Bridges is unlikely to cause the problems that he did for Judith Collins’ leadership.
His new role will keep him busy and challenged, and he knows Luxon will also be looking to him for political experience and support, making him one of the most valuable members on the team.
Alongside deputy leader, Nicola Willis, who will hold onto the housing portfolio, it will be a strong top three.
It’s what Luxon does next that will be more telling and give an indication of the sort of leadership style he plans to operate.
Much of what he’s learnt has been taken from former National Party leader and Prime Minister, Sir John Key, and they have similar corporate backgrounds.
Luxon has already spent much of his first few days talking about business leadership not being too dissimilar to political leadership and building a high-performance team.
What portfolios certain MPs would like to have, or think they should have, will be irrelevant.
Don’t expect Luxon to spend his time asking MPs what they’d like and why, it’s far more likely each phone call will be to tell them what portfolio they’re being given, and why.
Luxon will spend the weekend looking at each of his MPs’ academic backgrounds, careers before coming into politics, and strengths and weaknesses since becoming an MP.
That will guide his decision-making and where an MP is currently ranked or continues to be ranked won’t matter – the role they’re given will indicate their place in the caucus.
Rankings are a political hierarchy that mean nothing in the business world, where titles and responsibilities determine who is important.
Don’t expect Luxon to spend his time asking MPs what they’d like and why, it’s far more likely each phone call will be to tell them what portfolio they’re being given, and why.
On that basis, expect to see some curveballs in the new line-up to be announced on Monday.
Newcomers will no doubt end up getting the same treatment as many who have been ministers previously.
Both Joseph Mooney and Nicola Grigg are from Luxon’s class of 2020 and are seen as high achievers who will go places in the future.
With Mooney’s legal background he could be in contention for a hefty portfolio like justice or even immigration – if Luxon sees Erica Stanford’s good work in immigration to date better used in another portfolio.
Grigg could find herself picking up something meatier too – potentially tourism.
With Covid-19 still the biggest game in town and no sign of that dissipating anytime soon it would be a huge, and unlikely, move by Luxon to take either Chris Bishop off Covid response or Shane Reti out of health.
Bishop could end up getting shadow leader of the house back. He’s a natural in the role and only had it taken off him as Collins felt she had to punish him after he publicly complained about the way the caucus had voted on the Government’s bill to ban gay conversion therapy.
Collins is a potential problem area for Luxon if she isn’t kept busy enough or feeling valued enough.
Putting her into police (she was previously police minister) and letting her go up against the struggling minister, Poto Williams, would give her a good distraction as she goes on the hunt for a ministerial scalp.
The other former leader in the caucus is Todd Muller, who has chosen not to attend caucus meetings since his colleagues turned on him when Collins forced him to announce his retirement earlier this year.
Other than the vote of no confidence in Collins last week and the anointing of Luxon on Tuesday, Muller hasn’t attended the weekly meetings.
Luxon’s new leadership and his determination to give roles to everyone will be a green light for Muller to feel welcome enough to come back into the fold. It might even prompt him to un-retire.
It wouldn’t be completely out of the blue if he were given the climate change portfolio back.
He has a solid working relationship with the Climate Change Minister James Shaw, and did a lot of the heavy lifting forging consensus on the Zero Carbon Bill.
A strong performer in the caucus to date is Erica Stanford and while she may hold on to immigration given the legwork she’s already done there, she could get given a new area to get her teeth into.
As a young mother and having previously held the early childhood portfolio, Luxon might see education as the right fit for her, and a warranted promotion.
Luxon has former ministerial experience in both Todd McClay and Paul Goldsmith and it’s possible one of them might pick up his own local government portfolio.
There’s a lot of government policy being done in that area with both Three Waters and the RMA causing public backlash.
It’s too busy and technical for Luxon to have the time to hold onto himself.
There’s also the issue of whether he needs to go bigger and deal with the National Party board problems, including its president Peter Goodfellow, if the caucus is serious about real and long-lasting change.
Taranaki-King Country MP Barbara Kuriger will likely hold onto agriculture, as one of few MPs left in the caucus with actual farming knowledge.
Although, Luxon could see merit in pairing agriculture with climate change, in which case Muller is the logical person to do both.
The rural sector needs to be won back by National and Muller is respected within the industry.
Bayly could end up picking up a portfolio in the commerce/revenue/economic development space and while Chris Penk will likely keep defence, he could be promoted into a more challenging portfolio.
Former ministers, Gerry Brownlee, Mark Mitchell, and Michael Woodhouse, all need to be found jobs but it’s unclear how Luxon will deal with them.
Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey has been doing good work in the mental health field and will inevitably get the caucus backing to stay on as chief whip.
As for Luxon himself – while he might want something other than the traditional national security and intelligence portfolio held by the leader, he’d be better off keeping his commitments to a minimum.
Luxon has been very upfront about the mammoth job ahead to reset the National Party and claw back the hundreds of thousands of voters it lost at the last election.
There’s also the issue of whether he needs to go bigger and deal with the National Party board problems, including its president Peter Goodfellow, if the caucus is serious about real and long-lasting change.
As a first-term MP completely green when it comes to going up against the Prime Minister and the media on an almost daily basis, he has more than enough to learn without worrying about portfolios.
To help with that he needs a strong and experienced chief of staff and chief press secretary – not easy positions to fill from Opposition.
