Editorial: Key must be courageous in choosing his Cabinet

National's negotiations with the Maori Party continue, with the likely outcome of that party's leader Te Ururoa Flavell becoming Maori Affairs minister.

There are no surprises in John Key's agreements with support parties to back National in government for the next three years. United Future's Peter Dunne and Act's David Seymour win roles as a minister or parliamentary under-secretary outside the Cabinet in areas sufficiently harmless to ensure their loyalty while giving a nod to their pet policies. National's negotiations with the Maori Party continue, with the likely outcome of that party's leader Te Ururoa Flavell becoming Maori Affairs minister.

Where the Prime Minister is more likely to surprise will be in his allocation of Cabinet seats to his own. He has four substantial portfolios vacant, with the retirement of Tony Ryall from health and state owned enterprises and the resignation from justice and accident compensation of Judith Collins. Yesterday Mr Key suggested welfare minister Paula Bennett will move, and her preference was for a job in the economic field. Social development becomes the fifth portfolio-without-minister, and with the retirement of the Maori Party's Tariana Turia, the associate ministership and responsibility for the whanau ora policy is also vacant.

Even if limited to those portfolios, Mr Key has the opportunity for renewal. His track record suggests he will go further, moving the least able of his Cabinet on, in the hardline fashion of the financial services industry of his past life.

The Phil Heatleys and Kate Wilkinsons of the current ministry ought to be nervous, as should any ministers prone to the "arrogance" the Prime Minister has vowed to fight against in his third term. That test will not fell Chris Finlayson, Gerry Brownlee or Simon Bridges, although they ought to reflect on their various conceits.

National has a caucus of 61, up two, but with an intake of 15 new MPs who are unlikely to follow Mr Seymour and take a seat close to the ministry before making a maiden speech. There is a steady if uninspiring middle order from which Mr Key will need to select reinforcements. The whips Louise Upston and Tim Macindoe, Epsom candidate Paul Goldsmith, and former television presenters Maggie Barry and Melissa Lee might have hopes for elevation. Could former minister Maurice Williamson hope to re-enter the executive so soon after resigning in disgrace?

So the big jobs in health, welfare and justice will need to be allocated from within the existing Cabinet. Mr Key could choose to add education, having kept faith with the unconvincing Hekia Parata, thus placing the key social portfolios in play. National's major unfinished project, according to Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, is to change the culture, performance and productivity of the core state sector to reduce cost but also improve public service.

Mr Key has nominated a new approach to dealing with child poverty as a priority.

Judith Collins' demise also gives National the chance to address the legacy of Dirty Politics through more rigorous measures in the justice portfolio to uphold open government. A new minister should look again at the Law Commission's review of the Official Information Act and its support for more resources for the Ombudsman's Office, much of it haughtily dismissed by Ms Collins. After all, it was a National minister, Jim McLay, who introduced the OIA . His successors ought to show more respect for the public's right to know what is done in their name. Given its problems last term, National would win plaudits if it also revised the Cabinet Manual, again, to avoid Collins-esque conflicts of interest.

Mr Key's worst option would be to hunker down, fill the vacant seats cautiously and hope familiarity breeds acceptance rather than the much more likely contempt. It would be a good sign if he aims higher.