{"id":538727,"date":"2026-07-22T14:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/538727\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T14:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T14:34:12","slug":"stuart-nash-resigns-as-nz-first-candidate-winston-peters-announces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/538727\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuart Nash resigns as NZ First candidate, Winston Peters announces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stuart Nash has resigned as a New Zealand First candidate, Winston Peters has announced.<\/p>\n

In a brief statement posted on social media late on Wednesday, the party leader wrote: “Stuart Nash has offered his resignation as a candidate and we have accepted.”<\/p>\n

Earlier, the prime minister ruled out Nash from serving as a minister in a government he leads.<\/p>\n

“Whether reports of Stuart Nash’s resignation as a NZ First candidate are true or not, I am making clear he will not serve as a minister in my government.”<\/p>\n

Nash was roundly condemned<\/a> on Wednesday by MPs at Parliament for calling National’s Napier MP lazy for taking nine months off work at full pay.<\/p>\n

In reality, Katie Nimon took six months away from Parliament after having a baby.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Wednesday, Luxon had called the comments “sexist”, and said Nash was channeling the “manosphere”.<\/p>\n

Asked if he’d have Nash around the Cabinet table, he only encouraged people to party vote National to avoid “numpties” from other parties.<\/p>\n

Later that evening, Luxon said on social media, “Whether reports of Stuart Nash’s resignation as a NZ First candidate are true or not, I am making clear he will not serve as a minister in my government.<\/p>\n

“His lack of contrition after comments about one of my MPs’ maternity leave this evening shows he hasn’t.”<\/p>\n

In response to the criticism of his comments, Nash said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon the campaign was about who “shows up and delivers” for Napier.<\/p>\n

“I’m happy to be judged on my own track record, achievements and work ethic. That’s the contest I want.”<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth he said, “I’ve got real respect for any working parent raising a newborn alongside a demanding job – that was never in question.”<\/p>\n

Nash added that was why he was part of a government that supported the extending of paid parental leave – “The law change that the National Party voted against, twice.”<\/p>\n

Attempts to contact New Zealand First party members directly have been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stuart Nash has resigned as a New Zealand First candidate, Winston Peters has announced. In a brief statement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-538727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538727","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=538727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}