\u201cI really enjoy the way Parliament works, the way the House operates. Chris Bishop has been amazing to work with, he has been very generous in teaching me the ropes,\u201d she told the Herald. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, this is the next step of being able to show leadership, to be able to demonstrate that we can operate in Parliament well and women can succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
There have been 14 leaders of the House since the role was established in 1978 under the Muldoon Government, with Upston the first woman to hold the role. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor young women who are interested in serving their community, absolutely it is the best job in the country. I love it,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny young woman who has a desire or an ambition to make their country better, I would encourage them to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Leader of the House is a senior Government MP appointed by the Prime Minister to manage the Government\u2019s business in the House. This includes determining the order of the Government business and its law-making programme. <\/p>\n
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister for Social Development and Employment Louise Upston during an announcement on Jobseeker in Ellerslie in October last year. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
M\u0101ori representation<\/p>\n
During a term when some have described the Government\u2019s policies as anti-M\u0101ori, Luxon has at times pointed to the number of M\u0101ori around Cabinet across the coalition. <\/p>\n
Speaking at Tuesday\u2019s post-Cabinet press conference, Luxon said he was okay his party only had one M\u0101ori MP in Cabinet, again pointing to the wider Cabinet make-up. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got tremendous M\u0101ori representation in our coalition Government and Cabinet,\u201d Luxon said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate that may sit with people from other parties but the way we think about ourselves as a government \u2013 we have good representation at Cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said his reshuffle decisions were based on merit. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s really important is competency and merit and it is actually about making sure I have got the right people in the right seats at the right time. I have said that consistently and that is at the forefront of my considerations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, there are six M\u0101ori MPs in Luxon\u2019s Cabinet (one National MP, two Act MPs and three from New Zealand First). <\/p>\n
Earlier on Tuesday, Luxon appeared flustered after he fumbled answers to questioning from TVNZ\u2019s Breakfast. When asked how many M\u0101ori MPs he had in his Cabinet, Luxon initially said James Meager \u2013 a M\u0101ori minister outside Cabinet \u2013 before being reminded of Tama Potaka. <\/p>\n
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon arriving for his post-Cabinet press conference in the Beehive theatrette at Parliament yesterday. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Dr David Jenkins, a senior lecturer of political theory at the University of Otago, said there were several ways to mark diversity in politics, including identity factors like gender, as well as an MP\u2019s background, upbringing and avenue (different groups a person is associated with) into politics. <\/p>\n
But despite the differences in identity and background within a party, those MPs were still largely constrained by their party\u2019s programmes and ideology, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that is necessarily a bad thing; that\u2019s just the nature of party politics. But if there are so few women or M\u0101ori in your Cabinet, that is perhaps demonstrating that you are not necessarily attractive as a party to these groups. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe individuals are only going to matter to an extent; it is about how represented people feel by the party as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Immediately after the reshuffle last week, questions were raised about Paul Goldsmith\u2019s appointment as Minister for Pacific Peoples. In response to questioning, Act leader David Seymour said, \u201cI know what you are going to say: can you represent a person if you are not the same race?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe answer is absolutely you can. Your ability to do something is not predicated on your ethnic background, that\u2019s called racism, that\u2019s what we are opposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI really enjoy the way Parliament works, the way the House operates. Chris Bishop has been amazing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3013,6727,10666,1888,6628,78,27983,22638,2720,17318,3556,111,43,139,4061,69,1118,16422,42033,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-368345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-but","9":"tag-cabinet","10":"tag-cuts","11":"tag-first","12":"tag-historic","13":"tag-in","14":"tag-luxons","15":"tag-marks","16":"tag-mori","17":"tag-mps","18":"tag-national","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-newzealand","22":"tag-number","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-of","25":"tag-pm","26":"tag-reshuffle","27":"tag-to"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368345","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=368345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}