The Prime Minister may have been planning even tougher retribution against putative leadership challenger Chris Bishop than eventuated in the Cabinet reshuffle on Thursday.
Though Bishop lost two key powerful roles, he kept all of his main portfolios.
However, POLITIK has learned that officials in the Ministries of Transport and Housing were asked a fortnight ago to prepare briefs for new Ministers.
Bishop somehow has managed to hold on to both portfolios.
The reports that the request was made are unconfirmed.
POLITIK approached Bishop for comment yesterday morning, but by late last night, there had been no response.
Though he has kept two of his administrative portfolios, he has had to give up the much more politically influential roles of Leader of the House and Election Campaign chair.
The Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, maintains that this is because of the heavy workload that will be required from him as RMA Reform Minister when the two reform Bills return to the House shortly.
“It’s just acknowledging a very big workload with a massive set of deliverables in the next wee while,” Luxon said on Thursday.
“That just means that he’s losing the responsibility from the National Party point of view of campaign chair and leader of the House.”
But the heavy lifting on the RMA Bills has been done.
It is possible the Select Committee, which has just finished public hearings, may make some substantial recommendations relating to the role of Maori in planning, and there may be some fine-tuning of the regulatory takings provisions.
But there is little likelihood the Select Committee will be looking for a substantial rewrite of the Bills.
At the same time, Bishop has picked up the role of Attorney General; a prestigious position, but Luxon can relax with this appointment; the dry details of the Government’s legal business and the appointment of judges is not likely to give Bishop much political leverage.
Luxon has focused on Bishop’s RMA work before, when the Hutt South MP was looking like a threat.
After an Air New Zealand function at the Beehive last November, several high-powered Auckland business leaders returned home convinced that Luxon’s days as PM were numbered and that Bishop would soon take over.
Luxon responded with a surprise invitation to media to attend what is usually a private National Party function, a regional Christmas Party in Wellington.
That it was an appearance to boost his leadership became obvious when Finance Minister Nicola Willis devoted eight minutes of her speech to praising him.
Bishop was there, seated at the opposite end of a row of seats to Luxon, but he didn’t get to speak.
All Willis and Luxon could say about him was to acknowledge his work in reforming the Resource Management Act.
It was clear he had become a marked man.
Luxon offered a sort of denial when asked on Thursday how much the stripping of the roles off Bishop had to do with him “running the numbers against you” at the end of last year.
“I would just reject the characterisation of that question completely,” he said.
Not quite an adamant denial.
But Luxon’s move quite clearly not just strips roles off Bishop it also strips power off him.
Leader of the House was a role which gave Bishop a power base within the National caucus, particularly among the backbenchers.
The Leader of the House, now to be Louise Upston, chairs the Procedures Committee, which meets each day the House is in session and which allocates speaking slots in the debating chamber and assigns questions to backbenchers.
It is a position which can bestow considerable prestige on a lucky (or supportive) MP.
The campaign chair, now to be Simeon Brown, is even more powerful
Bishop was the campaign chair in 2023, a position he took over from Stephen Joyce.
It is a role which spans the party from the Leader to the rank and file members in the most obscure seats.
It would have given him a key role in formulating policy leading into the election.
The two roles, between them, have already allowed Bishop to accumulate a swag of political debts, precisely the kind of political baggage that anyone seeking leadership at some point might find very useful.
But though Luxon was obviously trying to put Bishop as a putative leadership challenger in his place, there were other issues with the Hutt South MP.
Drawing on his campaign chair role and noting National’s difficulties with the young vote, he argued that the best way to get that vote would be to make housing more affordable by building more houses.
But the corollary from his proposals that house prices would fall meant that the residents of Auckland’s greener suburbs could face the possibility of an intensified block of apartments built right up to their boundaries.
Those residents tended to be National’s core vote.
Auckland MPs, however, believed that Bishop’s proposals might win young voters but would alienate the suburbs.
POLITIK understands that National’s Auckland MPs were united in their objections to Bishop’s proposals.
So were the party faithful.
There were large attendances at meetings of National’s SuperBlues (its over 65 lobby group) while ACT Leader David Seymour was actively campaigning against the proposals and winning support from National.
It was Brown who stepped in to resolve this problem.
Luxon and Brown represent neighbouring east Auckland electorates, which were both heavily affected by Bishop’s proposals, and both men share an association with evangelical Christianity.
They are thus said to have a close relationship.
In January, Luxon hinted that the Government would modify Bishop’s proposals.
“It’s clear to us that change is needed and we’re prepared to make that change,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s a problem when you actually say, ‘I’ve listened to feedback, and I’m going to do something different about it’.”
Bishop’s cards were marked after Luxon made what media described as a captain’s call.
And though there is a range of views among the Auckland MPs about Luxon’s leadership, one told POLITIK last Thursday after the reshuffle that “we are very happy at the outcome”
The promotion of first-term Upper (Auckland) Harbour MP Cameron Brewer to become a Minister outside the Cabinet is an acknowledgement by Luxon of the importance of the city’s vote in National’s re-election campaign.
Meanwhile, Bishop’s great friend but rival leadership candidate, Nicola Willis, has been handed an opportunity with the fuel crisis to become the party’s logical successor to Luxon.
But she will have learned this past week enough not to push her chances.
