When Chris Hipkins approached Ayesha Verrall about taking on a new portfolio in Opposition on Wellington issues, she leapt at the chance.
“He knows I’m keen to be growing the types of issues I’m engaging on as a politician, and so the opportunity to get into local issues in Wellington, where I’ve lived for a long time and worked in the hospital, was really a great opportunity for me,” she told Newsroom after her position was announced as part of Labour’s reshuffle on Thursday.
It continues a trend for Hipkins of establishing new portfolios to focus on the country’s big cities. That started with the creation of a Minister for Auckland in January and, as part of Thursday’s reshuffle, Hipkins also announced Duncan Webb would be Labour’s spokesperson for Christchurch issues.
“In those larger cities, we have multiple local MPs and complex transport, housing and infrastructure issues, there is an ability to coordinate and organise locally and a pathway for escalating concerns,” Verrall said.
Branching out will be exciting for the Wellington-based list MP, who is only entering her second term of Parliament. Verrall was promoted straight into Cabinet after the 2020 election, starting with an associate health role focused on public health before taking on the Covid-19 response portfolio and then becoming a fully fledged health minister in January.
While she has held other portfolios as well, the health focus has been pretty all-consuming. Now in Opposition, she has the opportunity to continue to develop her skills as a politician, holding on to the health role but adding the Wellington and public service portfolios as well.
Verrall has already come a long way, from a minister who seemed nervous and at times stilted while responding to questions in the House or from journalists to a brawler who, by the end of the term, was able to go toe-to-toe with National’s Shane Reti and speak forcefully about a range of issues.
Already, in just a few days in Opposition, Verrall has gone on the attack against the Government’s plans to repeal her Smokefree reforms. Hipkins was content to let Verrall take questions about whether conspiracy theories had motivated some of the coalition’s other health policies on Thursday when he might have intervened on behalf of a less-experienced MP. Other than Hipkins himself, Verrall has probably been Labour’s most visible and outspoken team member this week.
“I love the health sector, I’m really proud to continue to hold the portfolio and there’s so much we have to fight for in the health sector. However, Opposition is a chance to do other things as well, and that chance to work at a community level was one that I’m more interested in taking up,” she told Newsroom.
“The other experience I had, particularly through the Covid response, was working closely with the public service, seeing their professionalism, creativity and commitment to keeping our people safe over Covid.”
With her Wellington hat on, Verrall will speak out about transport, housing and infrastructure issues facing the city. The new Government’s decision to pull out of Let’s Get Wellington Moving will undoubtedly be a focus for her, as will keeping track of its progress on a new Mt Victoria tunnel.
But the public service role also allows Verrall to advocate for Wellington in a way that blends the two.
“One of the issues is the local economy, which is threatened by the prospect of large-scale public service cuts. I believe Labour had in government a really strong, positive vision for the Wellington economy that we need to see protected,” she said.
The mood in the public service right now is one of “apprehension”, with some Government MPs seemingly relishing the prospect of job cuts. Before the election, National’s Chris Bishop (now Housing Minister) was asked whether people at Kāinga Ora would lose their jobs and he replied, “Hope so”. On Monday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said layoffs should begin “as quickly as possible”.
“A number of public servants have been busy, very professionally supporting the new Government as they come in,” Verrall said. “But I think, overall, the scale of the cuts that have been floated during the election campaign do make people apprehensive.”
The public sector’s new top defender also bridles at the suggestion the Labour government grew the sector too much over the past six years.
“If you look historically at the size of the public service in New Zealand, it is still quite small. Overall, the trend is not one of substantial growth in the public service. We have a growing population, we have high expectations of the public service, in terms of service delivery, but also the running of government in a functional way. All of those things have to happen, and the reality is it takes people to do that.”
Figures Verrall provided to Newsroom show the core public service made up 2.6 percent of the total workforce in 2022, up just 0.3 percentage points from 2017. The outright number of public servants actually dropped in 2022 from 2021 by about 800, demonstrating that at least some of the growth was Covid-19-related.
The overall public sector, which includes nurses, teachers and others employed by the state, represented 18.7 percent of the workforce in 2022, up from 17.9 percent in 2017. The public sector grew by a greater proportion in the first six years of the last National government (18 percent to 19.1 percent) than it did under Labour’s watch.
“I am so familiar from my experience as a minister of the essential work our public service did, over emergencies like Covid but also in the day-to-day provision of services that New Zealanders deserve and depend on. So holding the Government to account over the outcomes that they say that they will deliver through those public services and making sure they are maintained is incredibly important,” Verrall said.
“It’s also important to remember that our public service workers need their jobs valued and protected too, and we’ll be scrutinising the Government on that.”
In addition to the new Wellington and Christchurch roles, Hipkins also took the opportunity to reshuffle his front bench and redistribute portfolios from ministers to all MPs.
Willie Jackson, Kieran McAnulty, Ginny Andersen, Barbara Edmonds and Duncan Webb have all received big promotions. Kelvin Davis has dropped to the bottom of Hipkins’ shadow Cabinet, a reflection of the former deputy’s reticence about staying out the term.
Jackson has had a change of heart. After the election, he publicly expressed doubt about whether he would stay on. Now, having had conversations with a range of people and seeing the new Government’s plans for Māoridom, he has committed to playing a role for the time being.
In terms of portfolios, a few of the big changes include foreign affairs going to David Parker, McAnulty picking up housing, Webb gaining justice and the new regulation role, Palmerston North MP Tangi Utikere gaining transport and Rino Tirikatene taking on the corrections job.
With respect to repealing the smokefree laws can someone please explain to me how anyone, such as Debbie Nagarewa-Packer or Ayesha Verrall, can argue that:
1. The planned 60 outlets that were going to be allowed to sell cigarettes would not become an obvious target for criminals and drive cigarettes further underground into a gang controlled black market that has already been created in recent times; and
2. Young people will now all rush to take up smoking (again) and therefore ‘cost’ the country in terms of health outcomes?
I think Ngarewa-Packer rather disgustingly described the move as ‘systemic genocide’ against those who identify as Maori. A sickening choice of words if ever there was any.
What’s with the patronising and hyperbolic language? Anyone in 2023 who takes up smoking at any age surely knows it is harmful and may kill them. If they don’t and they are young, their parents do.
I don’t imagine the support for (young) people to give up smoking or messaging not to take it up in the first place is going anywhere.
None of us want anyone to take up smoking and I rather suspect the move is less about revenue gathering as some in the MSM have attempted to portray it and more to do with respecting people’s intelligence and not creating a greater target for criminals that the well-intentioned but flawed moves to concentrate the supply in a few locations would surely have created.
On public servant numbers, none of us want to see fewer front-line staff such as nurses and teachers and the parties. Now, the new government having boldly told us they want to cut numbers/costs by 6.5%, have their work cut out to identify those civil servants who don’t add a lot or indeed any of value.
Working closely with the Immigration Department as I do I can just imagine the bosses saying ‘Well if we cut numbers you’ll create delays and backlogs and burnout and unwellness in those who remain’. The truth is public service managers need to be open to innovative and new ways of delivering their services. In my experience over 30 years with INZ, they pay lip service to reform and improved productivity.
It takes just as long to secure a visa of this country today as it did when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young immigration consultant in 1989.
I wish Ayesha Verrall all the best in her endeavors to hold the new government to account, she seems both capable and committed.