Cabinet reshuffle: Bill battens down hatches for election year swells

Prime Minister Bill English is not one to go for the dramatic. 

So it was that the long-awaited cabinet reshuffle he announced this afternoon kept the changes to the minimum.

This column’s proposal which, incidentally,  I still think was a damn good idea – of Nick Smith for Foreign Affairs wasn’t taken up. 

But then I never really expected it to be. Dr Smith might be something of political liability where he is, combining Environment and Building and Construction: he might, too, have handled the Foreign Affairs role well. After all, it would not involve the kind of selling of policies he finds difficult and there would have been sufficient status and intellectual challenge to keep him occupied and perhaps even happy.

There is also the fact he probably understands climate change issues better than almost any other MP on that side of the House – for all that his way of understanding those issues drives many environmentalists into paroxysms of rage. 

And it would have been a promotion. 

In fact, looked at from some angles, Dr Smith has been demoted, losing responsibility for the government's by now rather large construction programme to rising star Amy Adams.

“The government is embarking on a large-scale building programme, and there’s a need to consolidate that,” Mr English told a press conference announcing the changes. 

The prime minister says the changes are not a demotion of Dr Smith but it is difficult to see the move as anything other than the removal of at least one of the political hot button issues for Election 2017 from the often accident-prone senior minister. 

Instead, Gerry Brownlee, former Defence Minister and senior frontbencher, gets the Foreign Affairs role, one he has been keen on for some time. 

That has already led to some jeering about his often undiplomatic manner and choice of words, some snobbish comment about his work history as a woodwork teacher, and also some tasteless speculation on the impact all that flying and banqueting will have on the not-particularly-svelte-like Christchurch MP.

Mr Brownlee might not be the sleekest intellect in Parliament but he has a tonne of unadorned raw intelligence and rat-like cunning. It’s not a bad combination for foreign affairs. 

One lingering question though is whether this is a temporary appointment until after the election. 

As this column noted six weeks ago, New Zealand First is likely to demand a foreign affairs role as part of any coalition deal with National – perhaps with leader Winston Peters or even putative newcomer, the former Labour MP Shane Jones taking that role. 

Mr Jones is expected to make an announcement about his political plans sometime in the next four weeks and the drums are beating for his coming aboard the NZ First campaign bus, probably as number three or even two, and as Whangarei candidate. 

Mr English though says he expects Mr Brownlee will stay foreign minister after the election – presuming, of course, New Zealanders are thoughtful enough to re-elect the government. 

As for the other changes: Nikki Kaye, as education minister, carries considerable hope with her. Even with her recent serious health scare, the Auckland Central MP is still a force to be reckoned with and education is an area critical to National’s long-term programme for both social and economic growth. 

Ms Kaye has a reputation as a dynamo, even among people who would themselves be workaholics by many other people’s standards. 

Her drive is – most of the time, anyway – tempered by a strong political nose for trouble, even if that electoral olfactory nerve is not foolproof.

The other significant change is Mark Mitchell’s elevation to the cabinet as defence minister.  Mr Mitchell is also that most desired political commodity – a safe pair of hands – and his future track will pay watching closely. 

In the end, this is a batten-down-the-hatches team for the political swells that lie between now and the election at the end of September.

Meanwhile, a poll of NBR readers found a slim majority, 52%, thought Mr Brownlee should not get the foreign affairs role while the remainder believed he should.