{"id":445617,"date":"2026-05-26T07:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T07:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/445617\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T07:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T07:15:09","slug":"former-labour-ministers-dismiss-mps-critique-of-dame-jacinda-arderns-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/445617\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Labour ministers dismiss MP\u2019s critique of Dame Jacinda Ardern\u2019s Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnd I think if we\u2019re honest … probably [that] person was a little bit lacking when we were there.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what we\u2019ve got to make sure the lesson is, it\u2019s a whole team approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Labour'sLabour’s Greg O’Connor is the \u014ch\u0101riu MP.<\/p>\n

Wigram MP Dr Megan Woods, a former Housing Minister and Energy Minister in the previous Government, said she disagreed with O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I think that we did a lot in the last Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t agree with Greg on that, I think we had an amazing team of staffers.\u201d<\/p>\n

List MP Ginny Andersen, a former Police Minister and Justice Minister, also felt differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not agree with that statement, I thought we were incredibly well supported,\u201d Andersen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a Cabinet minister during that Government and I thought we had excellent staff working who did very long hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andersen said she had \u201cnever heard that said by other members of the caucus\u201c.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n

\"GinnyGinny Andersen was a Cabinet minister under the last Labour Government. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n

Yesterday, Hipkins said he believed Labour had been \u201cvery, very well-served\u201d by its staff while in Government.<\/p>\n

He wouldn\u2019t make reflections on O\u2019Connor as members were currently deciding upon the list ranking of the Labour Party.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreg O\u2019Connor is still a member of our team, and I back him in the fact that he\u2019s a member of our team, but I disagreed with what he said at the meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he wanted to see O\u2019Connor returned to Parliament, Hipkins said: \u201cLook, I\u2019d love to have a bigger team in Parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to have all of our existing MPs back and a whole lot more on top of it … If Greg is re-elected to Parliament, he will be welcomed back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leaked audio<\/a> included MPs discussing how they would respond if they were asked whether they would rather fight \u201c100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck\u201d.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds responded by saying: \u201cEvery week I have to stand up in the House and ask a duck-faced horse \u2013 did I get that right \u2013 questions every single week, and I have the glory of being able to question her, or debate her in debates and to talk through media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edmonds, who was likely referring to Finance Minister Nicola Willis, had since apologised for any offence taken and said she had \u201cgot the question muddled\u201d.<\/p>\n

Andersen acknowledged the leak was \u201cfrustrating\u201d but indicated it wasn\u2019t worth attempting to determine who the leaker was.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be quite difficult to do that, I think.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to look at where you tighten areas up, I know that we\u2019ve always been open [to] people coming to attend and being part of things and also having it available online … so maybe the party wants to reconsider some of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Labour Party did not comment when asked by the Herald whether it was taking any action following the leak. <\/p>\n

Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAnd I think if we\u2019re honest … probably [that] person was a little bit lacking when we were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[190399,124,3054,89440,2947,102166,100392,227335,29052,793,2740,71,266,16841,13175,6721,146177,42677,17318,111,43,139,69,1118,5351,2961,8263,5843,1516,165,12637],"class_list":["post-445617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-arderns","tag-could","tag-criticism","tag-critique","tag-dame","tag-dismiss","tag-dismissing","tag-execute","tag-fellow","tag-felt","tag-former","tag-from","tag-government","tag-intended","tag-jacinda","tag-labour","tag-lacked","tag-ministers","tag-mps","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-previous","tag-pull","tag-reforms","tag-senior","tag-staff","tag-their","tag-together"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445617","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=445617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}