Thomas Coughlan: Michael Wood not out of wood amid Auckland Airport share saga

OPINION:

Suspended Transport Minister Michael Wood’s problems are no longer to do with his $13,000 of Auckland Airport shares.

In fact, they never really were.

There was every chance on Tuesday morning, hours after the Herald broke the story, that Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would have given Wood a rap across the knuckles for not sorting out his pecuniary interest and Cabinet Office declarations sooner, and that would have been the end of it.

Instead, Hipkins learned Wood had been told “half a dozen” times to sell the shares and had not done so.

In subsequent days, it emerged Wood was actually told a dozen times to sell the shares by the Cabinet Office - and, worse still, the former prime minister and her then chief of staff were also told about them.

The issue metastasized from an embarrassing morning explaining why Wood hadn’t sorted out his life admin, to an incomprehensible tale of repeated, albeit minor, incompetence laced with instances of implicit defiance of the Prime Minister.

Wood’s downfall began in a Cabinet meeting following the Stuart Nash scandal, which was opened with Hipkins reminding his ministers he had absolutely zero tolerance for scandal and to get their affairs in order.

No one knows why Wood, upon hearing this, was not reminded of the multiple warnings received from the Cabinet Office to sell his shares (he was warned twice in March of this year - the month Nash was sacked).

Illustration / Guy Body

Wood will face a sanction of some form, possibly the permanent loss of his beloved transport portfolio and a demotion down the Cabinet rankings, similar to what befell David Clark in 2020.

The sanction will be for ignoring the Cabinet Office and Prime Minister’s Office, rather than the shares themselves - everyone can see the shareholding was minor and Wood never acted inappropriately in his role as minister.

The sanction is required for many reasons: first, to remind caucus the Prime Minister really does have a zero-tolerance approach to scandal - it’s incredible post-Nash they need any further reminding of this, but there you go; second, to remind ministers they really should listen to the Cabinet Office and not think they can ignore it; and third, as consolation to a grumpy backbench fighting for their jobs who are irate Wood has wasted a week in an election year when they could be talking up the Government or poking fun at Christopher Luxon’s inability to open his mouth without saying something weird about reproduction.

The final and most important reason is that it is highly likely the registrar of pecuniary interests’ inquiry will almost certainly find against Wood and refer him to the Speaker, who will refer him to the privileges committee for potential contempt of Parliament.

That is damaging and embarrassing on its own, but it would be far less problematic if Hipkins can say that he had already sanctioned Wood. The case would be more or less closed before the investigation has finished, letting Hipkins and Labour focus on the election, while Wood straightens out his affairs.

Wood’s political career is far from over. This election’s a 50:50 affair and if Labour makes it over the line in October he’ll be in Cabinet, enjoying a bright ministerial future.

But Hipkins and Labour must deal with the fact he has been damaged by this - not terminally - far from terminally, in fact.

Alas for Wood, one of his most pressing concerns is to have become a meme. How can a minister who procrastinated selling his tiny shareholding be taken seriously when explaining why light rail construction (which was meant to have reached Wood’s Mt Roskill electorate by now) has not even started?

The headlines write themselves.

So maybe transport leaves Wood permanently. Kieran McAnulty, Labour’s new Mr Fix it, could take it on, but McAnulty is a provincial MP, and transport is an urban, primarily Auckland, portfolio. Grumpy commuters stuck in the Super(ish) City’s interminable traffic need to think the transport spokesperson “gets it”. That’s a problem for Labour, whose high-ranked Auckland MPs like Carmel Sepuloni are busy with other portfolios.

The scandal could have knock-on effects for Wood’s career. He was the last challenger standing when Hipkins took over the leadership in January, but pulled out of the unofficial contest without ever declaring his candidacy (wavering supporters will be glad - imagine if this scandal had happened to the prime minister).

He is the favourite to take over the leadership when Labour eventually heads into opposition, be it this election or the next. Wood is an incredibly polite and thoughtful member of caucus - well-liked on a personal level, but his ambition is polarising. Where he has masses of support is among Labour members and affiliated unions.

The party’s electoral college system of electing leaders means he is the odds-on person to beat when there is next a vacancy.

This scandal does not change that, but it will dent Wood’s reputation in caucus, meaning Labour could have a Cunliffe-years style split between members, unions and caucus.

Things will only get more difficult this week when real politics returns.

The Greens will announce their tax and incomes policy on Sunday. If it’s anything like their last (a wealth tax) and it will be, then it will fire the starting gun in the rule-out Olympics that is the contest between the Coalition of Cuts and the Coalition of Chaos.

The policy will be a major test of Labour’s political management, charting a course between the left and centre.

Next week is also Fieldays, where National will likely be forced to clarify what it wants to do with the vexed issue of pricing agricultural emissions. National must find a way of fending off Act in the regions without capitulating on climate so completely it repulses weather-depressed Aucklanders who want tougher action on climate change.

Wood is unlucky to have tripped up in an election year. It means his punishment will be more severe. But it’s not all bad news. Things move quicker in election years. If his luck returns, he’ll find himself yesterday’s scandal as the agenda moves to another unlucky soul.