Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has begun the political year with a ministerial reshuffle aimed at addressing perceived weaknesses linked to the National Party's declining poll numbers.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has been given a rebranded Economic Growth portfolio, previously held by Melissa Lee as Economic Development, and will relinquish her Public Service portfolio to Judith Collins.
The Minister of Finance is already regarded as the lead economic minister, but this portfolio formalises that role. Willis said she was now licensed to engage with business innovators and push key reforms in all policy areas.
“This new portfolio is about delivering changes across government to unleash innovation, investment, job creation and growth in the New Zealand economy,” she told reporters.
“Our plan is about more than simply getting through the recent economic data, it's about tackling the underlying issues which have constrained New Zealand small businesses exporters and productivity rates for far too long”.
However, the more significant change in the line up is the demotion of Minister for Health Shane Reti, who has sometimes struggled to rise to the challenges in the sector. Simeon Brown, who is more closely aligned with Luxon, will take over the difficult portfolio to address what is increasingly seen as National’s biggest vulnerability
The Prime Minister said Reti had “set some good foundations” in the healthcare portfolio but Simeon Brown was “the person we need to take the agenda forward”. He said Brown had proved his effectiveness in the Local Government, Energy, and Transport portfolios, which have now been given to Simon Watts and Chris Bishop respectively.
Luxon said he wanted ministers with health responsibilities, including associate ministers, to be primarily focused on that area. Brown will retain his largely symbolic Auckland portfolio and State-Owned Enterprises, but will otherwise work full-time on fixing Health NZ.
While the reshuffle was attributed to a strategic rethink during the summer break, it may also reflect concerns over the National Party's declining poll numbers. Interest.co.nz’s average suggests the National Party has lost six percentage points since the election and the gap between the Coalition and Opposition has shrunk from over 11 points to just 3.5.
Fleur Fitzsimons, the acting National Secretary for the Public Sector Association, said the lost support was because of underfunding in the healthcare sector.
"The polls are showing New Zealanders are far from impressed with the Government’s rushed and reckless austerity agenda — they are seeing what it really means for them,” she said in a statement.
"We wish the new Ministers well, but their success will depend on their ability to secure increased funding for health and the public service, not more irresponsible cuts”.
Other pundits have speculated the party is losing support due to its compromise position on the Treaty Principles Bill and an inability to fix the economy in its first year, as well problems in the health portfolio. These include downscaling Dunedin Hospital, managing Health NZ budget blowout, and the missteps over cancer drug funding.
Shane Reti isn’t thought to have made any specific mistake in the portfolio, only that it has become a focus for voters and Luxon wants a top minister to deliver results before the election in 2026.
The reshuffle also saw recognition for up-and-coming MP James Meager, who has been managing the select committee process for the Treaty Principles Bill. He has been given a couple of easy portfolios—Hunting and Fishing, Youth, South Island, and Associate Transport—and presumably the pay increase which comes with being a minister.
A full list of changes and responsibilites can be found here.
92 Comments
“This new portfolio is about delivering changes across government to unleash innovation, investment, job creation and growth in the New Zealand economy,”
Sounds like desperation to me. And realistically, why is this being led by Willis and the govt? It's not like she a track record in leading innovation and investment in the pvte sector - the Aotearoa answer to Elon Musk. Her role at Fonterra was not related to innovation and investment - she had a single year as GM for 'nutrient management' and the rest of the time in grifty roles such as stakeholder and govt affairs. It does make me wonder about the whole thinking behind "NZ Inc", Fonterra, and a govt-led economy.
It's worse than that:
"“Our plan is about more than simply getting through the recent economic data, it's about tackling the underlying issues which have constrained New Zealand small businesses exporters and productivity rates for far too long”.
I quizzed her to see if she understood what productivity was during the political campaign (she was in my local electorate). She believe getting rid of red tape and making it easier for businesses to do business would increase productivity long term. She couldn't actually define what productivity was either.
She will be as bad in that role as she is as a finance minister. Why can't we please elect people that at least have some knowledge in the areas they are going to be ministers in? GR was just as bad, but at least he sort of got how things work towards the end.
It reminds me of Judith Collins who during the 2020 election wanted to spend 1 billion on expanding the fibre network to farmers etc when it was known that starlink satellites were already in the air and about to launch their broadband network from the sky. Now she's the minister of space!
"borrowing to fund tax cuts for property speculators" - what does this even mean?? What tax cuts are there for property speculators? Are you mistakenly talking about interest deductibility?? That has nothing to do with property speculation - the loss of interest deductibility never affected property speculators.
the loss of interest deductibility never affected property speculators
Au contraire, it increased their tax liability thus putting a dent in their yield, making many investments much less profitable and sometimes non-sensical to keep, while funneling investment into new builds to ease the housing supply issues.
This isn't about getting rid of Reti,
It's about getting Simeon the fuck away from Transport and Local Govt as he has f***d up royally. There is no money for his mega roading projects and was on a collision course with Bishop.
There is no possible way they can achieve the savings they want in Health without cutting front-line jobs. Simeon will be the fall guy, he's too stupid to realise it.
Agree. I've had to hold my nose on his previous smoking lobby career and acknowledge he is the best hope we have for housing and transport. I wish him well.
I also hope Simeon gets his due for his petulant, irresponsible and childlike approach to road safety which will be directly responsible for many deaths and serious injuries over the coming years and for the serious loss of transport talent that has moved across the ditch because of him.
Bishop has one or two ideas on planning reform which I really like. Most particularly, setting a standards-based approach, and avoiding discretionary / subjective urban design considerations.
Ie. Have a few key standards. Comply, and no consent required. Don’t comply, and consent required but assessment limited to the thing the standard is controlling
I hope you made a submission on the Granny Flats. MBIE did a good job on preparing a standard set of questions and looked to cover all bases. If key ones are adopted it'll remove some discretion from Councils as well as cutting back on their resource consent and BC money making machine for single storey residential builds <60m2. They'll probably bump up the fees on sewerage and water applications to make up the shortfall in this lost income or bump up the rates where councils have run out of other revenue sources.
I've made my own submission to change the Building Act and Building Regulation for non-habitable buildings less than 10m2. The current Act and Regs are ridiculous on this.
I don’t think that is the reason, but it is a good outcome. Luxon rates Simeon, fellow church goer. He is considered the new “minister of everything” like Key had Joyce (who was equally as bad with transport). I sure hope Simeon gets dildoed too.
I like Bishop, but I question whether he will be allowed to run it or if he has to toe the party line.
What is Bishops play now though.
Their voter-base has wildly unrealistic expectations of the highways that will get built, all of which have exploded in cost. Canceling the couple % of transport spend on walking and cycling isn't going to fill in that black hole, nor will some $3 tolls. Simion already maximised the culture war angle.
It's all downhill from here, and Bishop will cop the blame. Health is a safer place than transport will be in the next 2 years.
Health is a safer place than transport will be in the next 2 years.
You reckon? It's possible but the way I see it is that the Transport chickens will come home to roost just as Simeon is fronting up on failing health outcomes. Transport will be reset because we can't afford it, the person that resets it can't be the same person as the person who committed to the projects in the first place, and who dissed the actual solutions they will be proposing. You can already see National leaning council's and constituencies starting to get pissed off at the consequences of Simeon's petty and childish decisions.
When Health fucks up they will throw Simeon under the bus like they did with Reti, get rid of Willis, who has to to go for the ferry fiasco and not being able to 'balance the books'. At that point Luxon will be rolled because he's the dipshit who put Simeon in those positions and appointed Willis. Fresh start under Bishop and Stanford.
Of course, Luxon may just be as stupid as he acts and genuinely thinks Simeon is competent.
Really well put - I think healthcare is historically an important portfolio but these days a bit cursed. It seems like we have such a big overhang of demand compared to capacity in the health system that as a minister you will only ever be shuffling scarce resources around. For unintelligent, unprincipled grifters it may sometimes mark the upper limit of their political career. For those (rare) politicians who truly do care about improving the health of the people I imagine it is a bit demoralising to see the full picture and understand the trajectory we are on as a country.
The South Island doesn't have a big enough population base for the type of challenges it faces, either in terms of infrastructure renewal or looming natural disasters. Not entirely their fault, hard to claw back a deficit like the one they've got but the reality their challenges need to be represented with a specific portfolio or else they won't get a look-in on a per-capita basis.
"The polls are showing New Zealanders are far from impressed with the Government’s rushed and reckless austerity agenda
Luxon and Willis are directly responsible for the rushed and reckless austerity agenda. So rather than take accountability and admit their leadership and competence might be at fault, it's move others around to be seen to be doing something.
Shane Reti is probably the most qualified and experienced to be minister of health. Is it possible he was butting heads with Luxon and Willis over funding? Brown will simply appease them both?
The treaty principles issue to placate Seymour is definitely an unnecessary distraction at this time.
What health austerity is the PSA union secretary referring to?
“When National and Labour released their strategy for health in the 2023 election, both parties had exactly the same figure – an additional $12.57 billion for Health NZ over the forecast period.
“National has gone even further and invested a record $16.7 billion in the Budget for Health New Zealand, plus an additional $604 million for more medicines.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2407/S00134/an-inconvenient-truth-for…
"What health austerity is the PSA union secretary referring to?"
Perhaps the 1% payrise offered to nurses is a good example.
Reti claims, in the scoop article, that the current situation in health is all Labour's doing. Rubbish! The current situation is the result of decades of under-fundiing by successive governments. What we need is a strong minister of health who is prepared to make some politically unpopular decisions e.g. no more super expensive cancer drugs which offer limited benefit.
I get the feeling both Luxon and Willis are realising that unwinding everything Labour had done comes at a cost - in both dollars and in reputation.
I wonder how Winnie is getting on as Minister of Rail?
And wasn't Chris Bishop supposed to be in charge of RMA reform?
Can't find it now, but one early report quoted Luxon as saying Brown had the experience of running a major organization. Anyone know what that organization was, I thought He was just a career politician.
At any rate, I'm glad he is out of transport and energy, he was a disaster in both.
Luxon needs to read the Linkedin profiles of his staff before making claims that aren't true, the source for running the major organisation is here:
Thanks to you both, I wasn't seeing things .
I didn't see it on Scoop, was either Rnz, or Stuff. Maybe nz herald.
So it seems it is true he made that claim.
Bizarre, the only thing I can think Luxon is referring to is issuing directives to Waka Kotahi, hardly running a large organization, and largely ignored by staff as much as possible.
It's just window dressing, but it's like Luxon has only just realised there is a 'south' island.
People in the south are furious with them. Dunedin Hospital, missing out on infra funding, and so on.
Creating a role of Minister, outside of Cabinet for the South Island, is a bit of a joke, but at least at some level it is recognition they have dropped the ball in the first half of their term.
National has been off message and off focus. Headed up by a leader that has no idea what he is doing. This "reshuffle" appears to be an act of desperation from a government that appears completely lost at sea. It also just goes to show the lack of talent they have in their depths.
Selwyn district is as blue as it gets, National rewarded them with taking away the funding for Rolleston High School even though it's the fastest growing area in the country. Only time I've seen common sentiment against National down here.
If Labour could get their shit together and figure out a way to dodge the culture war anchor currently attached to left wing politics, this could easily be a one term government.
“This new portfolio is about delivering changes across government to unleash innovation, investment, job creation and growth in the New Zealand economy,” she told reporters.
blah blah - picking winners - blah blah - why doesn't govt. just get out of the way.
set the economic framework, procure shared infrastructure and provide social services FFS
Might not help much, but I think your being a tad unfair here. My MiL works in the health system, and her whole job is rescheduling patients to cover cancellations.
Who do you think gets rung first in a cancellation- the patient from 4 months time or the ones in the next few days? How many people do you think she can call per hour, then day? What happens when they don't pick up - is it 'the health systems fault' they didn't answer their phone?
She gets to deal with a lot of old, grumpy people, as a plebian in an overly bureaucratic organisation, and got thanked with a pay freeze lower than teachers. At least the leave is good.
Fair enough. I must have worked at a different DHB. My suggestion still stands. And is in line with my advice to anyone dealing with the public health system. You must advocate for your own health and chase up results, appointments, whatever it takes. Sure it's only a small percentage that fall through the cracks, referral gets lost, or sitting unnoticed in some list somewhere, adverse results aren't passed on and you don't get called back in. But you don't want to be that person.
Over 20 years ago now I was working with a guy who had come over from Germany to help Post with their RFP for replacing mail sorting machines. He was describing a system they had there to manage the manual mail sorting workforce. Made up largely of part timers. As each shift was set up, a text message would go out to the pool of workers. If you were available and wanted the shift you would text a 'yes' back. If you made it in time to take a slot you would get confirmation that you had that shift. Just repeating, this was over 20 years ago now.
How hard would it be to have a similar system supporting bookings for scans, specialist appointments etc in the hospital to fill in cancellations?
How hard would it be to have a similar system supporting bookings for scans, specialist appointments etc in the hospital to fill in cancellations?
They really need to address cancellation s and mainly DNA's. My wife used to work in the capital at the DHB for a spell and the amount of wastage of scanning equipment and specialist time form no-shows was astounding.
Private insurance doesn't change the number of operating theatres, surgeons, and limited time surgeons have, amongst a growing population and a large demographic with increasing needs for the likes of operations, treatment, appointments etc. Eventually demand outstrips supply and the amount of money needed to get anything faster will increase as time goes on.
"Willis said she was now licensed to engage with business innovators and push key reforms in all policy areas."
Hmmm ... Is a relatively young and inexperienced person, with no relevant education, nor track record, in investment or business development, going to be able to weed out the 'get-rich-quick' charlatans and pick long-term winners?
“This new portfolio is about delivering changes across government to unleash innovation, investment, job creation and growth in the New Zealand economy,” [Nicola Willis] told reporters.
“Our plan is about more than simply getting through the recent economic data, it's about tackling the underlying issues which have constrained New Zealand small businesses exporters and productivity rates for far too long”.
So she's committing to ripping apart the tax system to create a new tax system that'll actually reward innovation and hard work?
No? I didn't think so. That particular 'underlying issue' remains a sacred cow and will never be touched by the political parties entrenched in assuring the ongoing tax free capital gains of its voter base.
This continuing drivel from the NACTF does nothing except waste precious time.
My only conclusion is they are all cowards.
This is due to the fact that they do not see their role as bein of the people, they see it as a stepping stone to a greater salary after their stint, and reaching a higher career across their lifetime. They rely on keeping things stable to keep getting votes, popularity of course, and the hardest decisions will impact those who contribute the most to political donations.
So after screwing up our transport system, the Simian Brown gets a chance to screw up our Health system too.
Next year he'll get Education and the things that Kiwis hold dear will be well and truly screwed up.
The god-bothering Luxy just loves this other god-botherer. I wonder if they pray together? Ya know, like Bush and Bliar did ...
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