By this criterion, should we consider Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden? Her decision to blow up the existing pay equity regime will probably go down as one of the coalition’s least popular calls. I certainly didn’t like it, not being convinced it was just or necessary – at least not on the $12.8 billion scale the changes ended up being.
But Act voters send their MPs to Parliament to make difficult and unpopular decisions to cut spending and rebalance our economic settings towards free enterprise.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden. Photo / Mark Mitchell
If carrying out the wishes of your voters is the criterion, then van Velden must be a finalist despite the controversy.
But surely there needs to be points for getting on and doing the “right thing” (whatever that is – it probably isn’t cutting $12.8b from pay equity).
Dame Jacinda Ardern, whom Young named politician of the year in 2019 and 2020 (she also won in 2017), got the award for hard policy graft and responding to two shocks with good policy that was usually compassionate.
Mercifully, 2025 has been largely absent of shocks, but I’d mention Damien O’Connor and Rachel Brooking, both of Labour, for swallowing their pride and indicating the party’s initial, tentative support for the India FTA and the coalition’s RMA reforms.
We’ll see in 2026 whether that support holds (Labour may vote against the RMA at third reading but not vow to repeal it). This sort of swallow-your-pride support for mostly sensible policy is what New Zealand needs a bit more of.
There’s plenty to be gained by Labour by creating trouble and uncertainty around the FTA and RMA, but credit to the party for sticking to its promise not to oppose stuff simply for the sake of it.
Pride is a sin, so awards to O’Connor and Brooking for swallowing theirs.
Two award winners: Chris Penk and Judith Collins. Photo / Dean Purcell
It’s been a good year for policy. With the notable exception of climate change policy, where New Zealand has sadly lost its way, we’ve seen some good, sensible stuff come up from both sides of the aisle.
In an age when one of the world’s oldest and most celebrated democracies seems to have given up on anything sensible, it’s worth pausing to reward the boring but worthy policy work being done by ministers and their bureaucrats.
So let’s hear it for Defence Minister Judith Collins for her bold Defence Capability Plan; for Labour’s finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds for Labour’s capital gains tax (who’d have thought it would cause so little trouble); for Erica Stanford for scrapping NCEA and the rest of her busy education programme; and for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for championing the boost to KiwiSaver.
Credit too to Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk for the courage to get his hands dirty liberalising earthquake building rules and the new scheme for mandating warranties for building works. There is a slight fear we may be liberalising our way to a new leaky buildings crisis (which, of course, the Government denies), but the status quo is a crisis of a different kind, contributing to New Zealand’s dire housing shortage. Credit to Penk for having the guts to get into the problem.
Parliamentary Undersecretary Simon Court of the Act Party also needs a bouquet. His fingerprints are all over Chris Bishop’s RMA reforms. Parliamentary undersecretaries are so often forgotten about and seen in Wellington as either the long way into Cabinet or a bauble to dole out to a politically important but otherwise untalented MP. Court’s very visible imprint on the RMA reforms arguably makes him one of the most consequential undersecretaries in years.
We’ve seen a lot of urgency this year – far, far too much. It’s never going to be enough to win politician of the year, but credit has to be given to the likes of Arena Williams, Duncan Webb and the aforementioned Brooking, who have slogged it out in the chamber for the Opposition during extended sittings. It’s thankless work, but it’s vital.
Labour’s Rachel Brooking has come to the fore when considering candidates for politician of the year. Photo / Mark Mitchell
On the topic of Opposition backbenchers, special mention to MPs Phil Twyford, Teanau Tuiono and Rachel Boyack, who continued to bang the drum for the crisis in Myanmar, and to Camilla Belich for her pay transparency legislation, a rare successful Opposition member’s bill (discuss your pay over the summer barbecue, no one can stop you).
The Luxon administration has made much of bringing back Government targets. The trouble is so far it’s been quite bad at hitting them. If we’re to judge the award by doing what the Prime Minister has told you to do, prizes then to ministers in the law and order portfolios, Paul Goldsmith and Mark Mitchell, who are hitting their main targets (although Mitchell has failed to hit the police recruitment commitment from the coalition agreement). On the topic of justice, Simon Bridges deserves a gong for figuring out ex-Police Commissioner Andrew Coster was a bit useless earlier than anyone else. The inaugural Strike Force Raptor award for police prescience must surely go to him.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell (left), Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith and Courts Minister Nicole McKee. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Our twin external relations ministers have had a good year. Trade Minister Todd McClay defied the doomsters and gloomsters to agree an FTA with India (points deducted for not firmly establishing a parliamentary majority for the deal). Alas, he wasn’t able to crack dairy, but reaction from almost every other sector has been positive. Credit too to Winston Peters, who has spent most of this year airborne. It’s a welcome reset, even if neither McClay’s nor Peters’ efforts have borne fruit in terms of avoiding higher US tariffs. Sadly, the truth is it could be a lot worse. Both ministers are performing well, but not enough for the top gong.
The Financial Times likes to rank MPs like stocks. On its weekly podcast, guests are asked who they’re buying and selling. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has had a year she’d rather forget. She’s the Finance Minister in a Government that campaigned on the economy, and the economy is in a state. But the thing with stocks is to buy low and sell high. I’d be buying stock in Willis when markets open after the break. As we hit what is (hopefully) the bottom of this grisly economic cycle, you can expect Willis’ stock to rise as we come out the other side.
Still, 2025 is not your year, Willis – perhaps 2026.
Polling is clearly a criterion for politician of the year. Ardern won politician of the year in part because she won elections (two of her politician of the year victories coincided with elections).
Te Pāti Māori is this year’s loser, with the party’s future now hanging in the balance. Claire Trevett awarded Debbie Ngarewa-Packer Opposition MP of the Year in 2021. Sadly, you can’t find much positive to say about the party in 2025 – an incredible bungling after the party monopolised opposition to the Treaty Principles Bill as recently as 2024.
Perhaps a participation award to Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke for having the good sense to stay out of the party dramas, and a sympathy award to Oriini Kaipara, who emerged from the frying pan of broadcast media in 2024 and into the fire of the Te Pāti Māori caucus in 2025.
Polling is also the reason this year’s winner can’t be Luxon. National’s polling has stalled and even gone backwards this year – an embarrassing feat for a major party in its first term.
Credit to Peters and the clever social media work of his new deputy, Shane Jones: NZ First is polling better than it ever has after a stint in Government.
The Greens are showing signs of pulling out of the tailspin they’ve suffered this term. I’ve always been sceptical of the argument the Greens have strayed from environmentalism to social justice, agreeing with most members that the party’s secret sauce is understanding the two are intricately linked.
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon earns praised for her electorate work in Northland. Photo / Supplied
Nonetheless, this year for the first time, I’ve felt the party has drifted and suffered from a lack of focus on its core issues. I’d single out Steve Abel and Lan Pham for keeping their eyes on the prize, and Hūhana Lyndon for her electorate work in Northland – her colleagues are impressed by the effort she’s put into the electorate and reckon she could take Te Tai Tokerau next year, netting the Greens their first Māori seat.
Crikey, it’s a bit of a lolly scramble. Maybe the economy really is getting better to the point everyone gets a gong, Oprah Winfrey style, maybe I’m just too nice.
But there can only be one winner.
Two names have been conspicuously absent from the awards doled out thus far.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has had a remarkable year. He got engaged, which is always nice, but he’s also led Labour to a miraculous comeback.
The party has polled ahead of National more often than not, and has been polling competitively most of the year – about six to 11 points above its 2023 result. In fact, it was last November and this January that Labour’s and National’s pollsters, Talbot Mills and Curia, both began publishing polls showing Labour ahead. Many polls also show Labour in a position to form a Government.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins at his party’s conference as he eyes a comeback for the party. Photo / Michael Craig
This is not itself unprecedented. At almost this exact point before the 2020 election, a couple of polls showed Simon Bridges the likely next Prime Minister, but Labour is far, far more united now than National was then, and Bridges never enjoyed the year of strong polling Labour has.
Hipkins also deserves credit for getting Labour’s CGT over the line. Rightly or wrongly, it’s hung like an albatross around the neck of the Labour Party. The successful launch of the policy has given the party a much-needed confidence boost. Where I would deduct points is for Labour’s small-target strategy and unwillingness to front up on its solution to the country’s fiscal problems, or its plans to fund pay equity. Those two cans, kicked merrily down the road this year, seem ready to cause Labour great pain in 2026.
But this award is for 2025 and, therefore, Hipkins will be our runner-up.
That leaves, by a whisker, the winner: Chris Bishop (it’s a good year for Chrises from the Hutt).
Associate Finance Minister, Transport Minister, Housing Minister, RMA Reform Minister, Bishop has very obviously donned the mantle of “minister of everything”.
Bishop is perhaps the Government’s busiest reformer, with the transport, housing and RMA reform portfolios each being enough to burden most ordinary ministers. The staggered, tactical approach to RMA reform has been a success, and while Bishop is clearly standing on David Parker’s shoulders when it comes to the structure of some of the Government’s reforms, it’s impressive what he’s managed to accomplish in two years.
Chris Bishop appears to have donned the mantle of “minister of everything” in the coalition Government. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Picking up the work of Labour’s Phil Twyford, Bishop’s commitment to supply-side housing solutions is admirable and effective, and while his rain dance for falling house prices may actually lose National the next election (there aren’t many National voters who go to the polls wanting their house prices to fall), the creation of a voting bloc of young propertied Kiwis may well form a key constituency of National governments of the future, and avoid the despondent and chaotic politics seen throughout the housing-crisis-ridden Anglosphere. It’s far-sighted politics of the kind we don’t see enough.
Points must be deducted for his non-coup this year (although not too many, voters didn’t seem to hate the idea of a change). The non-coup showed Bishop didn’t have the numbers in caucus, but it also showed he was too indispensable to sack. Indeed, Luxon never gave a clear answer as to whether he even had the courage to speak explicitly to Bishop about what the hell was going on.
Points must also be deducted for crises in the emergency housing portfolio (partly under the control of Tama Potaka). Emergency housing, a costly disaster under Labour, is a social disaster under National. The transport portfolio, while currently mostly under control, is going to have a challenging decade, with the roads of national significance programme clearly in line for some embarrassing U-turns.
I’m afraid it may be some time before you’re invited back to the Aotearoa Music Awards, Bishop, so you’ll have to content yourself with our award for politician of the year.