KEY POINTS:
Education Minister Steve Maharey is to step down from his $225,000 Cabinet job to become Vice-Chancellor of Massey University - a post which pays at least $320,00 a year.
Mr Maharey, 54, will leave Parliament next year, and quit Cabinet as early as next week when Prime Minister Helen Clark announces a reshuffle.
Mr Maharey was a sociology lecturer at Massey until he entered Parliament in 1990.
He said Massey asked him to go on its shortlist reasonably recently, and although he enjoyed his job as politician, "if there was anything else I'd like to do, this is it".
"I've been here for 18 years and I'd begun to think about what I should be doing over the next wee while. This came along, so it consolidated my thinking."
He said Labour's polling was not a factor in his decision and he remained convinced the party would stay in a strong position and hotly contest the next election.
He will stay on as a backbench MP until next year to avoid a by-election in his Palmerston North electorate.
Mr Maharey said he told Helen Clark a few weeks ago that talks with the university were getting serious.
"We are friends as well as colleagues and she has been, as a friend should be, telling me I shouldn't go, but she's also been very supportive of the fact this is a good opportunity and if I want to take it, I should."
He said there was no pressure on him to go as part of Labour's rejuvenation programme to inject fresh blood before the next election.
National deputy leader Bill English - who entered Parliament the same year as Mr Maharey - said Mr Maharey was a key person for Labour and his departure would be a blow.
"They've used him often to articulate Labour's policy line and I'm sure his standing down will prompt some other front benchers to consider their own futures."
Mr English said Mr Maharey's record as a minister was "patchy", pointing in particular to his part in the Government reforms of tertiary education.
"He's now going on to a tertiary education job, so will probably change his views about what the Government is trying to do," Mr English said.
Mr Maharey's start date at Massey was not yet settled. The current Vice-Chancellor leaves in March.
Labour senior whip Tim Barnett said his understanding was that Labour would lose Mr Maharey's vote when he quits. Parliament would then be reduced to a group of 120 MPs, and Labour would have to negotiate one extra vote to pass legislation, but its confidence and supply support would be unaffected.
Mr Maharey is the third Labour MP to announce their retirement in recent days.
- NZPA
