A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
Bestriding Labour’s small conservative wing, MP for Napier Stuart Nash has been a valuable commodity for the party despite an occasional propensity for letting his mouth get away on him. He and colleagues Damien O’Connor, Kieran McAnulty and Kelvin Davis help Labour keep in touch with its more conservative votersamong blue-collar workers, provincial and “middle New Zealand”, business people and the Pacific community. This is the all-important centreground where New Zealand elections are won or lost.
Nash was a natural choice to take back the police portfolio this year, after Jacinda Ardern’s fix-it man Chris Hipkins had stabilised it following a failed experiment with Poto Williams — who was caught in the headlines too often as public concern escalated over ram raids and gang warfare — then needed replacing as he stepped up to fix Labour’s fortunes as the new Prime Minister and policy-burner ahead of this year’s election.
Nash loved being Minister of Police and his role of shoring up the Government’s position on law and order, as Opposition parties pressed that it was still “soft on crime”.
Yesterday, in talking up just how tough he was on crime on NewstalkZB, Nash blew it. He said he had called Police Commissioner Andrew Coster two years ago encouraging him to appeal a court decision; then questioned whether courts were applying tough enough sentences in general — oblivious that this breached both the Policing Act 2008 and the Cabinet Manual.
He then doubled down in the face of questions from reporters who had been alerted to the infractions by Act leader David Seymour. He was just “chewing the fat” with his “mate”, wasn’t the Police Minister at the time, and reiterated his criticism of the judge’s decision.
The Policing Act says the commissioner “must act independently of any Minister of the Crown” regarding the investigation and prosecution of offences, and the Cabinet Manual states that Ministers should not express any views that could reflect adversely “on the impartiality, personal views, or ability of any judge”.
Hipkins accepted Nash’s resignation (he would otherwise have sacked him) and his fix-it Minister Megan Woods is now the acting Minister of Police. He won’t budge on Opposition calls for Nash to lose his other portfolios as well, unless there is another lapse of judgement, but it’s a significant setback for Labour after Hipkins’ abrupt repositioning of the party as more centrist, and conservative.
