{"id":359087,"date":"2026-04-01T20:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/359087\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T20:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T20:01:17","slug":"christopher-luxon-to-reshuffle-cabinet-can-he-turn-it-around-thomas-coughlan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/359087\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Luxon to reshuffle Cabinet \u2013 can he turn it around? \u2013 Thomas Coughlan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luxon isn\u2019t having much luck at that moment, but one area in which he\u2019s fortunate is in the decisions of Shane Reti and Judith Collins to retire from politics. <\/p>\n

Though he only has the ability to reallocate the 14 National Party portfolios of the 20-member Cabinet (plus roles outside of Cabinet), the fact Collins<\/a> and Reti<\/a> have decided to go opens up two spots in Cabinet, and several sought-after portfolios with which to sinecure promising MPs \u2013 that\u2019s much easier for Luxon than the messy business of having to boot someone out to put someone else in.<\/p>\n

\"ChrisChris Penk, a minister outside of Cabinet, is likely to move up.<\/p>\n

Collins steers defence, public service, spy agencies, digitising Government, and space \u2013 and is the Attorney-General. Luxon is lucky to have these top portfolios to dish out.<\/p>\n

Chris Penk, currently outside of Cabinet, has been a top performer. He\u2019s widely tipped to be heading into Cabinet. A New Zealand Defence Force veteran, the Defence portfolio seems like a sure bet.<\/p>\n

Reti\u2019s responsibilities are universities, science and technology, Pacific peoples and statistics \u2013 portfolios that lack a profile, but are all areas of significant pressure and could be good to distribute to an up-and-comer.<\/p>\n

James Meager, also outside of Cabinet at present, is a potential for heading into Cabinet. A former Beehive staffer, a safe pair of hands, his rise has been meteoric (this is just his first term ) but he has yet to be tested with something thorny. Luxon may decide to give Meager something meatier. <\/p>\n

A South Islander, Meager brings some welcome geographic diversity to a Cabinet that has more ministers from Epsom than from the entire South Island. The South\u2019s economy is booming relative to the North Island\u2019s, but coalition support down south is said to be flagging.<\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Meager may also go into Cabinet. He is currently a minister outside of Cabinet. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Cabinet\u2019s only other South Islander, Matt Doocey<\/a>, is potentially in for demotion, having been relieved of several portfolios in the last reshuffle. That said, Doocey is the Mental Health Minister \u2013 Luxon made a big deal that Doocey would be the first to hold the portfolio in New Zealand\u2019s history. It would be a bit of a blow to that promise to demote him.<\/p>\n

Also in line for disappointment is senior Minister Chris Bishop. Both Luxon and Bishop have hinted that he is likely to lose some portfolios. Bishop is overloaded, and he\u2019s about to get a whole lot busier thanks to his role as National\u2019s campaign chair. Lightening his load would make sense, but which portfolio?<\/p>\n

He is quite attached to them all, and some, like housing and transport, go together. He\u2019s very likely to keep Resource Management Act (RMA) reform, because he\u2019s the only minister who can shepherd the new RMA through the House. Everything else, however, is up for grabs. With Bishop said to be behind last year\u2019s embryonic coup, Luxon may choose to make an example of him. The question then isn\u2019t so much whether Bishop will lose a portfolio, but which ones.<\/p>\n

Then there are the practicalities. The reshuffle will mean some Beehive staff get \u201cevented\u201d.<\/p>\n

Beehive staff are on what are called events-based contracts, tying them to the fortunes of the minister they work for. If their minister gets sacked, demoted, or loses portfolios, the \u201cevent\u201d in the events-based contract gets triggered, making them immediately redundant.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, it\u2019s not a great example of people management to decide, one day before the Easter holiday, to turf dozens of staff out of the Beehive into the uncompromising Wellington labour market with just three months\u2019 pay to tide them over. As of today, those staff are loyal, bonded to their minister, but tomorrow, they may well be unemployed, bitter, and with an intimate knowledge of where the proverbial bodies are buried.<\/p>\n

All of that creates risk for a leader whose own position is looking threatened.<\/p>\n

If Luxon messes this up, he may well find the biggest portfolio to be reshuffled will be his own. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luxon isn\u2019t having much luck at that moment, but one area in which he\u2019s fortunate is in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[45621,665,6727,198,16426,21438,8414,189500,692,42,702,5840,16427,6722,43,36200,415,8766,42033,544,113,61,1865,6173,40,38,41,39,664,1533],"class_list":["post-359087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-announcing","tag-around","tag-cabinet","tag-can","tag-christopher","tag-coughlan","tag-couple","tag-demotions","tag-he","tag-headlines","tag-it","tag-least","tag-luxon","tag-minister","tag-news","tag-potentially","tag-prime","tag-promotions","tag-reshuffle","tag-some","tag-thomas","tag-to","tag-today","tag-too","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-turn","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}