Claire Trevett: Is the mini-exodus from Labour a sign of a sinking ship or normal house cleaning for 2023?

OPINION:

An en-masse urge by six MPs to spend more time with their families, rather than with a political party that is struggling in the polls, was always going to invite the image of rats deserting the sinking ship.

The reason for the timing is largely practical and amounts to house cleaning: Labour needs to start selecting its 2023 candidates.

Five of the six are electorate MPs and four are in safe Labour seats: Paul Eagle’s Rongotai, David Clark’s Dunedin, Poto Williams’ Christchurch East and Aupito William Sio’s Māngere. List MP Marja Lubeck and the more marginal Hamilton East MP Jamie Strange round out the list.

But Jacinda Ardern was clearly well aware how the bulk resignations risked coming across. She had signalled the week before that a “handful” of MPs would be announcing their resignations so that people would be prepared for it. When the time came she emphasised it was six out of 64 MPs – less than 10 per cent. Three of National’s 33 MPs are leaving.

The choices were to either do them together, or to do them one by one over a period of time.

The first looks like a lot of people all at once. The second would be a long stream of resignations, day after day. Both look odd.

The advantage of the former is the fuss is over in a day. The latter gives those who deserve it more air time to be the focus and talk about their career.

When the time came, the six duly announced they were leaving and wanted to spend time with their families. It is the usual (and sometimes even true) line trotted out by politicians since the year dot.

The counter-reason is that they want to spend less time with their fellow MPs – or that their fellow MPs want to spend less time with them.

So each was duly asked whether they were leaving of their own accord or whether it was because they thought Labour would lose the next election.

Ardern was asked the same, given she had the Cabinet reshuffle coming up and had made it clear she expected to make some changes to her lineup.

That means new people coming in - and that means some of the old going out, whether they “choose” to resign or not.

It does buy Ardern some space for her looming Cabinet reshuffle - and it will provide an opportunity for new candidates or list MPs who want to grab the job security of a safe seat.

None of the resignations came as a real surprise or shock. None were leaving in disgrace. They did not make it seem as if it was unwillingly or out of a grump. Three – David Clark, Aupito William Sio and Poto Williams – had done their time.

They may have felt they might be pruned as part of Ardern’s Cabinet reshuffle, but it is not unusual for capable but not extraordinary ministers to be moved on to make way for others unless they are critical to operations.

The likes of Marja Lubeck and Jamie Strange may have concluded no ministerial posts awaited – or that they didn’t particularly want the pressures of the job after all anyway.

Sio’s departure will leave a hole – it leaves Ardern with a gap in Pasifika representation in Cabinet; only Carmel Sepuloni remains. But Sio pointed to the next generation: Barbara Edmonds and Tangi Utikere are ministerial possibilities and the highly capable Edmonds is tipped for Cabinet.

One of the six did not help dampen down the rats abandoning the ship thing.

Jamie Strange observed he was more suited to Government than opposition - “so it was good timing for me coming into government”.

That could also be read as meaning he was leaving because he feared opposition was inevitable.

Ardern decided to take it as Strange simply reflecting that he’d enjoyed being an MP while in Government. Poto Williams had a more robust view of opposition than Strange, saying it was a good training ground for MPs and “gives you a bit of backbone”.

The other 58 MPs have left it in the hands of an election to decide whether they will enjoy the opposition or Government benches or have their resignations decided for them.