Labour deputy leader and senior minister Kelvin Davis will chair next Monday's Cabinet meeting while Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters pursues a lawsuit against former Government ministers.
Cabinet – a weekly high-level meeting of Government ministers where the most important decisions are discussed and made – is usually chaired by the Prime Minister.
Jacinda Ardern will be at the East Asia summit in Bangkok until Tuesday and, as such, Winston Peters will be Acting Prime Minister.
READ MORE:
• Winston Peters presses on with lawsuit against National as details emerge
• Winston Peters will settle lawsuit against National for Paula Bennett's scalp, Newstalk ZB understands
• Winston Peters vs National: Paula Bennett not giving up her scalp
• Winston Peters warned about possible light rail cost blowout concerns
Despite this, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister confirmed Davis would chair the Cabinet meeting.
This is because Peters will be at the High Court in Auckland for a case looking into the leaking of his superannuation details in 2017.
Peters will take the stand on Monday, according to Newsroom.
As both the Prime Minister and Acting Prime Minister are away from Parliament, the weekly post-cabinet press conference has been cancelled.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said post-cab – a question and answer session with press gallery journalists and the Prime Minister – was only ever with the Prime Minister or, when they were away, the Acting Prime Minister.
Neither Ardern nor Peters will be fronting for the Government during Question Time on Tuesday either. That responsibility will fall to Davis or Finance Minister Grant Robertson.
Peters has brought a privacy case against two former ministers – Anne Tolley and Paula Bennett – top civil servants and a government department after it emerged before the 2017 election he had paid back about $18,000 of superannuation over-payments.
The case starts at the High Court at Auckland on Monday.
Court documents from the case suggest Peters was sent a letter four years into his seven years of overpayments by officials asking him to confirm if he was "single" but continued to receive a higher rate of super, for single people in shared accommodation, for three more years despite being in a de facto relationship.