A National-Act cabinet would require some difficult negotiations by Christopher Luxon, left, and David Seymour. Photos / NZME
OPINION
In the first of two pieces on the next Cabinet, Audrey Young looks at a possible National-Act combination. Next week, she examines what a possible Labour-Greens-Māori Party Cabinet could look like.
National leader Christopher Luxon will face several big dilemmas over Cabinet roles if he is in a position to lead the next government.
The biggest would be: how significant Act’s portfolios should be, who should be Speaker, who should be Agriculture Minister, who should lead climate change, and how law and order portfolios should be divided.
The resolution of each has flow-on effects to other jobs.
If there were a two-party majority coalition between National and Act, Act leader David Seymour would almost certainly become Deputy Prime Minister.
Audrey Young: What would Cabinet look like in a Labour-Greens-Māori Party government
In negotiations, he could seek but not expect to get Finance. He could expect Act’s number of ministers to be roughly proportional to the number of MPs making up the coalition.
The list below would give Act almost a quarter of ministerial positions, six out of 28 ministers, and jobs that would be meaningful to Act. National would have 22 ministers and the speakership.
The three contenders for Speaker would be Gerry Brownlee, the longest-serving National MP; Judith Collins, a former party leader; and Michael Woodhouse, the shadow leader of the House.
Brownlee is the favourite to become Speaker in any National government, mainly because the other two would be more problematic. Collins would probably be a competent and fair Speaker but she has been a polarising figure within her own party, and the position of Speaker would give her prominence and power that a new-look government might want to avoid.
Woodhouse is one of those active terrier types of MP who gets into everything that moves and often irritates MPs across the House. He would be the least popular option.
The trouble with appointing Brownlee is that it would deny him the chance to become Foreign Minister again, a job he held in the last months of the Bill English government. He is on top of foreign affairs and the fine nuances it often involves. On the issue of great-power rivalry, there is not a whisker of difference at present between him and the current government on its approach to China, the United States and Australia.
But Brownlee is likely to be favoured for Speaker by the party leadership.
The other two contenders for the prestigious Foreign Affairs role would be Judith Collins, who has the seniority for such a role, and Todd McClay, who has the experience as a former Trade Minister.
Collins is likely to be favoured, as a recognition for her service to the party. Her leadership ended badly with a no-confidence vote in 2021, but she stepped into the breach when the party was falling apart in 2020 and her competence as a minister is not questioned.
McClay is at the centre of another major dilemma for Luxon – who to make agriculture minister. Incredibly for the so-called party of farmers, McClay, a townie from Rotorua, is National’s agriculture spokesman. Almost matching Chris Hipkins’ loss of ministers, National is onto its fourth agriculture spokesperson since the last election.
It began with David Bennett under Collins, who was switched out for Barbara Kuriger under Luxon, who was dumped for an improper feud with the Ministry for Primary Industries, who was replaced by former leader Todd Muller, who was replaced by McClay when Muller announced his retirement.
It would be surprising to see Kuriger make any ministry in the foreseeable future.
Losing agriculture to Act is the dead rat National should swallow for the parlous state of affairs – that National has run out of farmers. Act recruited a president of Federated Farmers as a candidate, Andrew Hoggard, and has placed him at No 5 on its list, and the party has every claim to the job.
McClay however, should keep trade, and could pick up two portfolios in biosecurity and food safety that would require National and Act to work closely together on agriculture.
National is hoping three farmers will be elected as new MPs, Grant McCallum in Northland, Suze Redmayne in Rangītikei, and possibly Miles Anderson in Waitaki.
It could not argue that Hoggard, as an MP straight off the farm, could not immediately become a minister. National itself is expected to promote list-only newcomer James Christmas straight into a ministerial role as Attorney-General and Treaty Negotiations minister.
He learned the ropes as a ministerial adviser to Christopher Finlayson when he was Attorney General, Treaty Negotiations Minister and responsible for the intelligence agencies.
Muller’s decision to retire presents Luxon with a big problem in the event he gets to lead a government because Muller would have been the clear choice for Climate Change Minister.
He worked closely with Greens co-leader James Shaw on the Zero Carbon bill and understands the complexities and politics of the issue and had standing with rural New Zealand.
The other National MP with established greenish credentials is Erica Stanford. But as a future Education Minister, that portfolio is too big for any add-ons at all.
The increasing importance of the portfolio and the effects of climate policy on the economy requires the oversight of a senior minister in the short-term at least.
That is why in this exercise of producing a potential Cabinet, it is under the direct responsibility of the Finance Minister, Nicola Willis, with the assistance of the existing spokesman, first-term MP Simon Watts, as an associate minister.
An alternative would be to give it to the highly competent Chris Bishop and offload his housing portfolio to Simeon Brown to develop the synergies between transport and housing.
Another problem for Luxon would be the allocation of law-and-order jobs, Justice, Police and Corrections, and would be a potential point of contention between National and Act. Given Act’s long-held policy focus on law and order, it could justifiably demand one of the law and order portfolios.
Justice is the lead agency in the law-and-order space and should go to National’s main law-and-order guy, Mark Mitchell, who is currently spokesman for Police and Corrections.
Corrections would be an appropriate portfolio to allocate to Nicole McKee in Act. The only question for National would then be whether to split Police and Justice between two people. If it used its common sense, it would keep them both together as the Government has at present, and give them both to Mitchell.
Contrary to common belief, Police is not and should not be a big portfolio. Because of its separation from government, it requires a very light touch by a minister but who should have open ears about what would make policing better.
The real hefty portfolio is Justice, where the policy work is done across the whole sector.
National’s Justice spokesman is currently Paul Goldsmith but it does not make sense to fragment the sector too much. If nothing else in his time in Parliament, Goldsmith has shown that he is versatile.
He could pick up a mix of responsibilities including energy and resources, and oversight of the Crown agency Te Arawhiti, set up by Kelvin Davis. It provides oversight and direction to the public sector about the Crown’s responsibility as a Treaty partner, claims under the Takutai Moana Act, and ensures that the Crown’s Treaty settlement commitments are met. In an earlier life, Goldsmith worked for the Waitangi Tribunal and has maintained an interest in Treaty policy.
Under the scenario below, the first six ranked on Act’s list would become ministers.
David Seymour would become Minister of Regulation and, as Act has promised, set up a Ministry of Regulation to identify regulations that would be cut and set standards against which new laws and regulations would need to be measured.
Deputy leader Brooke van Velden would be responsible for re-establishing partnership schools and could almost choose what area of Health she wanted under a delegation as an associate minister, such as Pharmac.
Nicole McKee would get Corrections and, as a committed outdoors woman, become the new minister of Hunting and Fishing.
Karen Chhour, a former state ward, would become the Minister for Children to oversee reforms in Oranga Tamariki.
Hoggard would go straight into agriculture and another newcomer, Todd Stephenson, No 6 on the list, could become minister Small Business and Minister of ACC.
The hypothetical Cabinet list below sees some National MPs missing out on a ministerial post, including Kaikōura’s Stuart Smith, and Tamaki’s Simon O’Connor. They have been leap-frogged by newer MPs such as Tama Potaka and Nicola Grigg.
The fact is that National has so few Māori and women MPs that so long as they are competent and have not marred their record, as Kuriger did, they will get consideration over some of the longer servers.
First-termer Simon Watts distinguished himself with his work opposing the Three Waters reforms and could get local government. Another first-termer, Penny Simmonds, is a former chief executive of the Southern Institute of Technology and is a shoo-in as minister. Her primary goal would be to dismantle Te Pukenga, the amalgamated polytechnics.
If New Zealand First was required to form a government, and Cabinet positions were part of the deal, leader Winston Peters could again claim the post of Foreign Affairs.
In that case, Judith Collins could be given Defence. If Shane Jones made it back to Parliament with Peters, he could get portfolios aligned to boosting the economic development of Northland and its transport links.
An obvious missing element in this scenario is any Pacific minister. Agnes Loheni, a former National list MP, could return as a list-only candidate and could be squeezed into the ministry. Andrew Bayly and Scott Simpson are likely to be the first to go if the ministry were reduced in size.
This hypothetical scenario sees the Prime Minister initially retaining oversight of the intelligence agencies, with assistance from James Christmas as an associate minister.
Christopher Luxon
Prime Minister
National security and intelligence agencies
Nicola Willis
Finance
Climate Change
Chris Bishop
Infrastructure
Housing
Leader of the House
Shane Reti
Health
Paul Goldsmith
Economic Development
Energy and Resources
Te Arawhiti
Louise Upston
Social Development and Employment
Child Poverty Reduction
Social Investment
Erica Stanford
Education
Matt Doocey
Mental Health
Disability Issues
Community and Voluntary Sector
Youth
Simeon Brown
Transport
Public Service
Auckland
Building and Construction
Judith Collins
Foreign Affairs
Digital Economy and Communications
Pacific Peoples
Women’s Affairs
Mark Mitchell
Justice
Police, SFO
Todd McClay
Trade
Customs
Biosecurity
Food Safety
Melissa Lee
Broadcasting
Arts, Culture and Heritage
Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities
Andrew Bayly
Revenue
EQC, SOEs
Veterans
Gerry Brownlee
Speaker
Michael Woodhouse
Immigration
Workplace Relations and Safety
Sport and Recreation
Scott Simpson
Environment
Penny Simmonds
Tertiary Education
Research, Science and Technology
Internal Affairs
Simon Watts
Local Government
Associate Climate Change
Emergency Management
Chris Penk
Defence
Commerce and Consumer Affairs
Seniors
Nicola Grigg
Conservation
Tourism
Statistics
Tama Potaka
Maori Development
Forestry
Oceans and Fisheries
Land Information
James Christmas
Attorney-General
Treaty Negotiations
Associate Minister for SIS, GCSB
ACT PARTY
David Seymour
Deputy Prime Minister
Regulation
Brooke van Velden
Association Education (Partnership Schools)
Associate Health (Pharmac)
Nicole McKee
Corrections
Hunting and Fishing
Karen Chhour
Children (Oranga Tamariki)
Whanau Ora
Todd Stephenson
ACC
Small Business
Andrew Hoggard
Agriculture, Rural Communities,
Audrey Young covers politics as the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.
The decision is expected to be announced later today.