Coalition Government deal - Audrey Young: Is Luxon’s Cabinet selection fair?

OPINION

Christopher Luxon has delivered a Cabinet that suggests that National is in charge.

Even if Winston Peters and David Seymour overshadow the incoming National Party Prime Minister - as happened at the unveiling of the coalition agreements - Luxon has forged a Cabinet of largely common sense and fair appointments.

National has kept the big jobs including Finance, Education, Health, Social Development, Justice, Attorney-General, Housing, Agriculture, Transport, Energy, Immigration, Defence, Conservation, Environment, Economic Development, Māori Development, Local Government, Corrections, Climate Change and the Public Service.

The shivers that have been running down the spine of the public service with the prospect of David Seymour or even Simeon Brown getting public service have vanished. As have concerns in the legal sector over the prospect of Winston Peters being made Attorney-General.

Both of those appointments have gone to sensible women. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will take responsibility for the public service, which will give her an oversight of which government agencies are performing and which are not.

She will also get to pick the next Public Service Commissioner when Peter Hughes retires in February, which will give her a big influence over setting new expectations.

She will want cost savings from the public service but coming as she does from a public service town, she will be mindful to avoid a slash-and-burn mentality.

Her Associate Finance Ministers are Chris Bishop, David Seymour and Shane Jones.

The appointment of Winston Peters to Foreign Affairs and David Seymour as the new Minister of Regulation were foreshadowed well in advance.

Judith Collins has been a big winner from the Cabinet, not only becoming Attorney-General but getting Defence as well. She has long held an interest in Defence as the daughter of a Second World War veteran. And she once cited the leadership and personal ethics of former German general Field Marshal Rommel as the reason he was one of her heroes.

She has a raft of other portfolios as well that can go only to those senior and trusted, including SIS, GCSB, Space and the Minister in charge of the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques.

Collins had always been a competent minister in John Key’s government and after her disastrous spell as party leader, she resisted calls for her to leave politics altogether. Her decision to stay has been vindicated in her appointments.

Chris Bishop, National’s No 3, has got everything he wanted: Housing, Infrastructure, RMA reform and Leader of the House.

National, New Zealand First and Act MPs waiting for the coalition deals to be announced in the Beehive. Photo / Audrey Young

Paul Goldsmith has kept responsibility for Justice and is a good pick for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, given the narrow field from which Luxon had to choose. Having worked at the Waitangi Tribunal as a historian, he is one of the few in the Cabinet with any real interest in the Treaty of Waitangi.

Tama Potaka, who has been an MP for less than a year, has gone straight into Cabinet with responsibility for the Ministry of Māori Development, Te Puni Kokiri, Māori Crown Relations, Whānau Ora and Conservation. As a lawyer, he will be able to continue the conservation law review started under Labour. And many of the Government’s commitments in Treaty settlements involve Conservation.

Melissa Lee’s appointment as Economic Development Minister was a surprise. It is yet to be seen if she is up to the task. But it can’t be seen as a bad appointment. In fact, it is impossible to identify any appointment that would ring alarm bells, other than Act’s Nicole McKee being underworked with Courts and Associate Justice (Firearms).

Ministers who will be delighted to have kept their responsibilities from Opposition include Simeon Brown in Transport, Mark Mitchell in Police and Corrections, and Todd McClay in Trade. McClay has kept Agriculture but two farmers from Act and New Zealand First get related portfolios, Andrew Hoggard in Biosecurity and Mark Patterson in Rural Communities.

Hoggard outside Cabinet and New Zealand First’s Casey Costello inside Cabinet with Customs and Seniors are the only two brand new MPs who have become ministers.

The difficult decisions for Luxon would have come after he had decided to give both Act and New Zealand First three ministers inside Cabinet: Seymour, Brooke van Velden and Nicole McKee for Act, and Peters, Shane Jones and Costello for New Zealand First.

There are good reasons for having that configuration in terms of giving the smaller parties enough of a voice.

But the result is that some National ministers with significant portfolios are outside Cabinet. In that category are Penny Simmond, the new Environment and Tertiary Education Minister, and Simon Watts, the new Climate Change and Revenue Minister. As well, Act MP and the new Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, is in that category.

It may be unfair, but it is just a fact of life in coalition government that there are never enough Cabinet roles to go round. The ministers outside Cabinet will be able to attend relevant Cabinet committees and be able to attend Cabinet itself when presenting their own policy papers. And James Shaw managed the Climate Change portfolio well enough outside Cabinet.

Luxon’s ministers will be grateful to even be ministers, knowing that others have missed out, such as former minister Scott Simpson, Barbara Kuriger, Stuart Smith and Joseph Mooney, the only one of National’s 2020 intake who has not got a job.