{"id":540295,"date":"2026-07-23T12:33:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T12:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/540295\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:33:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T12:33:50","slug":"a-round-up-of-stuart-nashs-political-career-following-his-short-lived-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/540295\/","title":{"rendered":"A round-up of Stuart Nash’s political career following his short-lived comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stuart Nash’s political comeback has been shortlived<\/a>, after MPs at Parliament roundly condemned his comments calling National’s Napier MP lazy for taking time away from Parliament to have a baby.<\/p>\n

The comments were revealed on a podcast, and put to MPs on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

He withdrew as a New Zealand First candidate later that evening after discussion with the party’s leadership.<\/p>\n

The resignation comes just days after addressing party supporters at New Zealand First’s convention.<\/p>\n

RNZ takes a look at a timeline of Nash’s mistakes.<\/p>\n

Police portfolio<\/p>\n

In March 2023, as Labour’s Police minister, Nash expressed his frustrations at a judicial decision.<\/p>\n

He admitted to phoning the Police Commissioner Andrew Coster in 2021<\/a> and suggesting a decision should be appealed.<\/p>\n

He said he thought the judicial decision was a “bad one”, and stood by that criticism, saying he was “chewing the fat with a guy who was a mate.”<\/p>\n

Nash’s comments were a breach of the cabinet manual, which forbids ministers from criticising a court decision.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said at the time it was an “error of judgement” and removed the police portfolio from Nash.<\/p>\n

Then-opposition MP David Seymour said that Nash should be gone as a minister altogether.<\/p>\n

While then-opposition leader, Christopher Luxon, compared the breach to insider trading and said at the time “you cannot trust having Stuart Nash in your caucus as the prime minister”.<\/p>\n

Cabinet sacking<\/p>\n

Around two weeks later, still in March 2023, Hipkins sacked Nash from all of his ministerial portfolios, following another breach of the Cabinet Manual<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It emerged Nash had sent an email to senior business figures in 2020 while he was small business minister, which contained Cabinet discussions related to a commercial relief package being negotiated at the time.<\/p>\n

Hipkins said Nash expressed in the email “both his opposition to the decision Cabinet reached and the position that other Cabinet members took”.<\/p>\n

The email was sent to two of Nash’s donors, which Hipkins said as commercial property owners, had “an interest in the Cabinet decision”.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet Manual states that discussions at Cabinet and Cabinet committee meetings are informal and confidential.<\/p>\n

“This is a clear breach of collective responsibility and Cabinet confidentiality,” Hipkins said.<\/p>\n

‘A p***y and a pair of t**s’ – Nash<\/p>\n

In September 2025, while there was speculation Nash was considering joining New Zealand First, he made comments in an interview on The Platform that landed him in hot water.<\/p>\n

He was asked for his definition of a woman, and replied a woman was a “person with a p***y and a pair of t**s.”<\/p>\n

He later phoned back, after speaking to his wife, and said he wished he didn’t make the comment, also posting an apology on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

“It was wrong and unacceptable, and I apologise unreservedly for any offence that this comment may have caused,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

Peters called the comments a “dumb mistake to make” at the time, and noted Nash had also realised that and “apologised unreservedly”.<\/p>\n

The exchange took place just days after Nash had made his first appearance<\/a> at a New Zealand First convention, fuelling speculation he was planning to run for the party.<\/p>\n

The saga continues<\/p>\n

Nash’s employer at the time, Robert Walters, launched a formal review regarding the comments made in a personal capacity.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the company said the remarks were “deeply inappropriate” and didn’t reflect the values or the standards of the business.<\/p>\n

Before the review was completed, Nash resigned from his job<\/a> at the recruitment agency.<\/p>\n

Not long after, Nash was dumped from a government trip<\/a> to the United States due to concerns his recent remarks about women would be “a distraction”.<\/p>\n

Nash – who runs consultancy Nash Kelly Global – had been set to join Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and other delegates on a trip to promote the government’s new “golden visa”.<\/p>\n

When first approached for comment, Nash told RNZ his plans had merely been postponed after his 13-year-old son had badly broken his leg.<\/p>\n

But in a statement Trade Minister Todd McClay said the Minister decided Nash’s participation in the mission “would be a distraction.”<\/p>\n

Napier for New Zealand First<\/p>\n

In May 2026, Nash was confirmed as a candidate for New Zealand First<\/a>, contesting the Napier electorate.<\/p>\n

Nash held the Napier seat for Labour for three terms before he was sacked from Cabinet in 2023 by then-prime minister and current Labour leader Chris Hipkins.<\/p>\n

The New Zealand First leader said at the time Nash would “obviously” be a minister if the party was in government after the election.<\/p>\n

Peters also said Luxon would regret his past comments about not being able to trust Nash.<\/p>\n

Asked whether he had reconsidered welcoming Nash into the party following those comments, Peters said he had “messed up with those unacceptable comments and I told him so”.<\/p>\n

“He has apologised and taken that matter responsibly and seriously. He got pulled into line by his wife, and we’re not into cancel culture…here at New Zealand First,” Peters said.<\/p>\n

‘Laziest MP I have ever come across’ – Nash<\/p>\n

This week, on the Cross Party Lines podcast, former National minister Chris Finlayson said Nash had texted him, calling National’s Napier MP lazy for taking nine months off work at full pay.<\/p>\n

“Laziest MP I have ever come across.<\/p>\n

“Nice woman but ill-suited to the rigours of being an electorate MP,” the text, which RNZ has seen, read.<\/p>\n

In reality, Katie Nimon had ten weeks off with her newborn son and then returned to part-time electorate work before returning to Parliament after six months away.<\/p>\n

Nash’s comments were roundly condemned at Parliament on Wednesday<\/a> for being “sexist”, “derogatory” and “offensive.”<\/p>\n

Later that evening, Peters confirmed Nash had offered his resignation<\/a> and the party had accepted it.<\/p>\n

Nash later took to social media saying the private message he sent had become a “significant distraction.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stuart Nash’s political comeback has been shortlived, after MPs at Parliament roundly condemned his comments calling National’s Napier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-540295","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\/540295","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=540295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}