If only I’d listened to myself more closely. Three months ago, in my most recent Cabinet report card, it was clear things were not right with Ardern and she had lost her purpose.
“While Ardern is clearly the most valuable person to the Government, she is in an uncertain phase of leadership,” I wrote. “She is a little like an empty-nester, only it’s Covid that has gone and she has to rediscover her role without it.”
Unfortunately, I added: “Too loyal and valuable to Labour to be bailing out early” - a position which had been reinforced repeatedly by Ardern herself in public comments.
But in fairness to Ardern, like a Prime Minister having to express confidence in a minister right up until the moment it vanishes, her commitment to the role had to be expressed in terms of absolute commitment - right up until the moment it vanished. There is no halfway house on these things.
Little did we know that when Ardern escaped to Tairua on the Coromandel in January, she recognised she had lost something: the motivation to carry on.
In many ways, the bigger clues were in plain sight. Read more >
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is relying on advice from the experts to respond to the current disaster [Cyclone Gabrielle], but there is an inner circle of people he depends on every day, and almost all of them have one thing in common.
Most of them worked in the Beehive at some point during the fifth Labour government from 1999–2008 when Helen Clark was Prime Minister and Heather Simpson was chief of staff.
The inner circle is a group of staff and colleagues without whom Hipkins, or any leader, cannot operate. They are like his work family. He has known them for years and trusts them implicitly.
Hipkins himself worked in the Beehive as a political adviser to former Education Minister Trevor Mallard. And six of the nine in his inner circle also worked there at some stage during that Government’s terms.
Others, such as chief press secretary Andrew Campbell, were active in student politics about the same time that Hipkins was - Campbell at Otago University and Hipkins at Victoria.
Not all friends are part of the inner circle. Hipkins is an old friend of Health Minister Ayesha Verrall from student days but, as a relative political novice, he is not likely to be taking advice from her. Read more >
Ask those who should know and two names emerge as the best in class of New Zealand’s public service leaders.
The first is former diplomat Brook Barrington, currently on leave as the chief executive of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. The other is Belfast-born Naomi Ferguson, who last year finished as head of Inland Revenue.
Both are considered the outstanding public sector leaders of their time who would be the strongest contenders to replace Peter Hughes as Public Service Commissioner next year, when his term is up.
But there is no certainty either would want it and succession is more in the thinking stage than the planning phase.
If neither was keen on the Public Service Commission job, the field is open, with some clear possibilities but no clear favourite. Read more >
National leader Christopher Luxon will face several big dilemmas over Cabinet roles if he is in a position to lead the next government.
The biggest would be how significant Act’s portfolios should be, who should be Speaker, who should be Agriculture Minister, who should lead climate change, and how law and order portfolios should be divided.
The resolution of each has flow-on effects to other jobs.
If there were a two-party majority coalition between National and Act, Act leader David Seymour would almost certainly become Deputy Prime Minister. In negotiations, he could seek but not expect to get Finance. He could expect Act’s number of ministers to be roughly proportional to the number of MPs making up the coalition.
The three contenders for Speaker would be Gerry Brownlee, the longest-serving National MP; Judith Collins, a former party leader; and Michael Woodhouse, the shadow leader of the House.
The other two contenders for the prestigious Foreign Affairs role would be Judith Collins, who has the seniority for such a role, and Todd McClay, who has the experience as a former Trade Minister. Collins is likely to be favoured, as a recognition for her service to the party. Her leadership ended badly in 2021, but she stepped into the breach when the party was falling apart in 2020 and her competence as a minister is not questioned. Read more >
The hoo-ha over whether Christopher Luxon was obliged to find a new date for The Press leaders’ debate in the Christchurch Town Hall after Chris Hipkins is out of Covid isolation is reminiscent of the old gag about David Frost and Peter Cook.
Frost rang Cook to invite him to dinner to meet Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson before their nuptials and, after consulting his diary, Cook apparently said, “I’m terribly sorry but I appear to be watching television that night.”
It is quite possible Luxon will be otherwise engaged every evening next week, doing regular things such as having dinner [or] meeting with the campaign team via Zoom. Changing plans is inconvenient but not impossible. Every notice to the media about a leader’s movements says it is subject to change because election campaigns are always fluid and change according to circumstances.
But Luxon has every reason to avoid another debate. It is not because he is a weaker debater - he is not. He and Hipkins are fairly even. He might actually have won. But when you are ahead in a campaign, there is no good reason to give your opponent the chance of getting ahead.
The conflict over the debate shows beyond any doubt that Hipkins is the underdog. In the past, it has almost always been the Prime Minister who has dictated which debates he or she will take part in, and the Leader of the Opposition who has been grateful to have any shared platform. In this case, it is Hipkins who is desperate to have another shared platform with Luxon. Hipkins has nothing to lose. Luxon has.
The episode has changed the tone of the campaign. Not long after most leaders had expressed sincere sympathy for Hipkins’ illness, Labour took to social media with Luxon dressed in a chicken’s costume - the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Matt McCarten used one for the Alliance during the Taranaki-King Country byelection. Read more >
Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.
