A talented team: (from left) Marama Davidson, Chris Hipkins, Mark Mitchell, Louisa Wall, Grant Robertson, Winston Peters, James Shaw
With the nation’s attention divided between the All Blacks’ Rugby World Cup quarter-final and the General Election, Winston Aldworth takes a look at New Zealand’s political firmament and selects a rugby XV that would be strong on the left, the right and down the centre.
Given the way rugby dominates our cultural and sporting landscape, it’s natural that Kiwis identify certain personality characteristics which align with different positions - and look for those traits in people.
In the middle of the Rugby World Cup - and with the election gathering steam - the Herald selects a starting XV of New Zealand politicians.
The highly scientific selection process was based on several factors, none of which bear close examination. Here’s the team to bring home the silverware.
1 Loosehead prop: Mark Mitchell (National)
You don’t have to have first-hand combat experience to be a functional front rower, but it helps. National’s spokesman on defence got into genuine gun fights while working as a mercenary in Iraq, and has never given a clear answer to the relatively straightforward question: “Have you ever killed someone?”
Mitchell fancies himself a captain and he doesn’t lack courage: if you think a live-ammo firefight sounds grim, this bloke took on Judith Collins in a bid to bag the leadership of the National Party back in 2020. Anyone who can survive that, can handle this job.
2 Hooker: Shane Jones (New Zealand First)
The loquacious wind-up merchant will bring a bit of Dane Coles to the role of rake, needling and chattering his way under opponents’ skin. And a bit of Sean Fitzpatrick too: Jones can be counted on to inform the referee of injustices, while all the time himself playing the man not the ball.
Rugby can be a brutal sport, and its best exponents bring supreme confidence. The boy from Awanui has it in spades.
“Everyone wants Sonny Bill in their team,” he once told National Radio, when explaining how it was that an organisation of which he had once been chairman had gone on to secure significant coin from the Provincial Growth Fund. Except for when Sonny Bill got that red card against the Lions in 2017, mate.
3 Tighthead prop: Judith Collins (National)
The traits of a good tighthead prop are well known: You must be hardworking and not averse to getting your hands dirty.
The woman known as Crusher appears frequently enough in that how-to tome for grubby deeds Dirty Politics to make it clear she knows her way around the murkiest depths of a ruck. Her knack for a cheap shot makes Richard Loe’s hit on Paul Carozza look like high-brow philosophical discourse.
And she’s relentless. Collins cheerfully ran on to a deadset hospital pass when picking up the loosest of balls that was the National Party leadership just 10 weeks out from the 2020 election. Her team were no-chance, but she admirably continued to cart the ball up despite an abject lack of support.
4 Lock: Sam Uffindell (National)
The MP for Tauranga’s place in the second row is secured not solely for thuggish deeds as a youth, but also because he is, according to one seasoned political correspondent, “a proper unit”. We’ll need a big target in the middle of this wobbly lineout.
He’s also got the happy knack of surviving judiciary hearings, following revelations that, as a teenager, he beat up a younger boy at boarding school, and claims that while attending the University of Otago, he was an aggressive bully who once pounded on a woman’s bedroom door, screaming obscenities, until she fled through her window.
Through the years, top-flight second rowers have honed the art of making sure their dirtiest deeds have as little light as possible shed on them. Team Uffindell worked a neat piece of distraction by releasing the final report on his thuggish behaviour on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. “Look ref! What’s that over there?!” Pinetree himself could not have done it better.
5 Lock: Greg O’Connor (Labour)
They used to say every great Springboks team needed to have at least one cop in its ranks - with Mitchell and this bloke, we’re packing two. You don’t last as long in the police force and politics as this West Coaster without becoming proficient at the dark arts of survival and retribution.
Grizzled grafter O’Connor is a cousin of Damien O’Connor, the last remaining member of the team that won the inaugural Parliamentary Rugby World Cup in 1995.
6 Blindside flanker: Kieran McAnulty (Labour)
A hard-grafter and grassroots scrapper, Labour’s rural-man cosplayer has proven himself a reliable set of hands since picking up the Three Waters mess earlier this year.
As a former bookmaker with the TAB, McAnulty could probably find an angle to boost the team’s coffers.
Running this bloke in the No 6 jersey means our side will have two flyers as flankers. Tall timber Carmel Sepuloni - a former netballer, two-code footy player and all-round battler - is unlucky to miss out on the blindside spot. But we’re backing our locks to have enough wiles about them to secure plenty of lineout ball.
7 Openside flanker: Chloe Swarbrick (Greens)
Every great Kiwi team needs a No 7 capable of finding opportunities in chaos and shining with speed of mind and action when space opens up. And like the great All Blacks No 7s of days gone past, Swarbrick’s ability to pounce is well-documented and celebrated.
The camera loved Michael Jones and Richie McCaw and it digs Swarbrick, too. Like those great players, Swarbrick is fast, disruptive and quick to spot a turnover opportunity. She’s also always near the action.
8. No 8: Grant Robertson (Labour)
In his role as Minister of Sport, Robertson has had access to all the dark secrets of the game. He ran at the base of the scrum in his playing days and brings a genuine rugby career highlight to the pitch: Robertson was a ballboy for the third test against the Lions, in 1983 at Carisbrook. Final score 15-8 in a vintage series 4-0 shut out of the tourists. Those were the days.
9 Halfback: Chris Hipkins – co-captain (Labour)
The past six months have shown the Prime Minister is used to being trapped at the bottom of a ruck and brutally kicked. Somehow, he comes out the other side of the ruck battered and bruised but still in the game.
Snappy delivery during those bizarre Covid-19 briefings showed the future Prime Minister could operate fast when under pressure. And when a succession of his Cabinet colleagues red-carded their own careers in the first half of 2023, his quickfire reallocation of ministerial portfolios demonstrated he can be a capable and creative distributor. If only there were some decent runners left on the park to charge on to those short balls.
10 First five-eighths: James Shaw – co-captain (Greens)
A calm organiser amid the sometimes-chaotic Greens line-up, Shaw has done a great job over the years of never looking flustered. He knows when to dash at the line on a matter of grand principle, but it’s his underrated awareness of when to kick for touch that has his team on the correct side of the 5 per cent margin.
By steadily accruing three-pointers, he’s kept his side in the mix as the final whistle nears. He’s tougher than you might think too: after an idiot punched him in the face on the way to Parliament, he continued on to the office to get on with work.
11 Left wing: Marama Davidson – co-captain (Greens)
Bursting into parliamentary play in 2015, Davidson has always run clever lines. She does a fine job of keeping her own space on the left fringe without straying out of bounds and always maintaining a tangible link with her teammates in the centre.
When they spill the Capital Gains Tax pill, she snaps it up. Legalised weed? She’ll tuck that under her arm and run with it, too.
12 Second five-eighths: Christopher Luxon – co-captain (National)
You think you’re a fan of a rugby team? Well, the National Party leader claims to have been a fan of the Crusaders since before the side even existed.
Second five is famously a position that’s neither here nor there. Is it for twinkle-toed dancers? Or for bullheaded hard nuts? And which one is Luxon anyway?
He’s new on the scene and still has the weird sheen of a corporate chameleon, so it’s hard to get a read on which footy position best suits Luxon’s character traits. We’re sticking him at second five for two reasons: 1.) With a broken nose he could do a passable Mike Tindall impression; 2.) By teaming him up with the bloke in the No 13 jersey, we’re creating a Midfield of Chaos.
13 Centre three-quarter: Winston Peters – co-captain (New Zealand First)
The best All Blacks No 13s come into their prime late in life: Frank Bunce and Joe Stanley were both nearing the age at which people consider voting for New Zealand First when they made their debuts in the black jersey.
The willingness shown by NZ First skipper Peters in rubbing shoulders with protesters outside Parliament last year shows the old master still has a canny knack for finding an opportunity. Always an elusive runner, once he spotted the gap in the protesting ruck, Peters was able to convert it into points on his dash back into contention for election.
He’s a classical man, opting to call the No 13 role “centre three-quarter”.
A renowned bon vivant and veteran traveller, Peters will be key to the team’s social activities and entertainment off the field. He’s also New Zealand’s undisputed King of Comebacks.
14 Right wing: Simon O’Connor (National)
National’s MP for Tāmaki is a committed right winger: he’s against a woman’s right to choose on abortion and he’d like to see more Christianity in Parliament.
Despite his solid conservative ethos, O’Connor can be an instinctive player - and getting isolated can land him in trouble. He had to issue an apology for making a wisecrack about a mass shooting in the US not being carried out by a “white, cis male”. The MP who trained as a priest put that one down to an “emotionally compromised” state.
(The other contender for this position, David Seymour, was considered by the selectors to be the most likely to finish a match with a suspiciously clean jersey).
15 Fullback: Louisa Wall (Labour)
We’re stretching the selection rules a bit here, as the former MP for Manurewa left Parliament last year, aggrieved that she’d missed out on contesting the seat and was instead reduced to a place on the Labour list. But technically this Rugby World Cup winner with the Black Ferns in 1998 slides in at the corner as she was in the House within the current Parliamentary term.
She’ll play the role of a classic fullback for us - Wall was most effective charging into the fray from the Opposition bench. It was from there that she secured her legacy, getting support across both teams for the remarkable same-sex marriage legislation. Just don’t expect her to link up with the bloke wearing the No 14 in this team.
Wall risks getting isolated from her teammates, and ultimately she proved to be more of an individual than a team player. But her mana and bona fides as a footy player mean the No 15 jersey will sit well on these shoulders.
Winston Aldworth is NZME’s Head of Sport, and has been a journalist since 1999.
The Rugby World Cup final referee revealed he had to undergo surgery during the tournament