National leader Judith Collins during her press conference on the reshuffle. Photo / Mark Mitchell
National leader Judith Collins during her press conference on the reshuffle. Photo / Mark Mitchell
COMMENT:
With a twinkle in her eye, Judith Collins said her first reshuffle had been fun.
It was also very impressive in the circumstances.
She has found a place for the two previous leaders on her front bench and given them fitting portfolios, justice to Simon Bridges, augmenting his foreignaffairs, and trade for Todd Muller.
It shows respect to them and implicitly to their respective camps.
Very few members of the caucus have reason to sulk – perhaps Mark Mitchell for being demoted down the ranks from No 9 to No 15 and losing justice to Bridges.
But he has largely been babysitting the justice portfolio since his early sterling work around Czech-born criminal Karel Soubrek, who was initially granted residency.
Mitchell also took the unwise step of challenging Collins for the leadership on Tuesday night, when he didn't have a hope in Hades of getting it.
It was not the time to signal one's leadership ambitions for a future occasion.
Collins has also promoted the standout talent from the party's younger ranks, Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop, to senior jobs, shadow leader of the House for Bishop and education for Willis.
Former National leader Simon Bridges. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Shane Reti was given health yesterday after Collins removed it from Michael Woodhouse for passively accepting private patient information sent from former National president Michelle Boag and doing nothing about it.
The pity is that these events have come so close to the end of the parliamentary term. There are only three sitting weeks for us to see how Nicola Willis goes against Education Minister Chris Hipkins, how Shane Reti goes against Health Minister Chris Hipkins and how Chris Bishop goes against Leader of the House Chris Hipkins.
The resignations of another two senior women in Nikki Kaye and Amy Adams were a blow to Collins in the first week of her leadership.
They come on top of five other women, former deputy leader Paula Bennett, Deputy Speaker Anne Tolley, both capable former ministers, plus Sarah Dowie from Invercargill, Maggie Barry from North Shore, Nicky Wagner from Christchurch and David Carter, Nathan Guy, Alistair Scott, Hamish Walker and Jian Yang.
In a party already short on women, having seven women leave at once is less than ideal.
But Kaye and Adams have made a convincing case that it was not about Collins as leader. They both would have been given senior roles and high rankings.
The Adams retirement is not a surprise, having simply reversed an earlier rescinding of a retirement announcement.
It would have been more of a surprise if she had stayed after her good friend Todd Muller packed in the job.
The retirement of Nikki Kaye from politics is more of a blow to Collins and to National – more than Kaye might have imagined.
Kaye has been an important figure for 12 years representing the modern face of National as a young woman, an urban liberal, an Aucklander and slayer of the Red Flag that flew forever in Auckland Central.
She probably made her decision too quickly after the emotional upheavals of the past two weeks in which she and Adams helped Muller to mishandle the whole patient privacy issue, which eventually tipped him over the edge.
But the suggestion that either of them is going because they advised Woodhouse to delay a press statement for three days can be dismissed.
Todd Muller, Amy Adams and Nikki Kaye early in his leadership. Photo / Mark Tantrum
Adams and Kaye appear to have given that advice. There are no denials, but in the scheme of events, it is an interesting but minor detail that may not have changed anything.
Woodhouse sat on the material he received from Boag for several weeks, not Adams or Kaye.
Muller may not have told the fibs he did at his Thursday standup in Christchurch in relation to what he knew about Woodhouse's involvement. But that was Muller's fault, not Adam's or Kaye's.
They had been asked to handle the privacy breach issue by Muller because he was not up to it and that would have come out eventually, possibly too late for Collins' rescue mission.
