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He is replaced by two money men: Former Minister Michael Woodhouse assumes the coveted finance position, but shares it with the relatively unknown Andrew Bayly, who gets the new position of ‘Shadow Treasurer’ and the prized number three: the most powerful MP behind the leadership.
“Pretty tight at the hip,” Collins said of Woodhouse and Bayly. She said that “they get along very well, they work very well together” and will be “a powerhouse.”
Former leader Todd Muller was also penalized for his leadership hit. It has dropped 11 places to number 19.
Collins was asked whether the demotions of Goldsmith and Muller were punishment for how badly they damaged the National Party’s election campaign.
“It is actually the recognition of the problems that we think are going to be the most important problems that we have to deal with and one of them is obviously the economy,” he said.
It was said that former leader Simon Bridges would look good for the finance role. But Collins did not want to know if he was offered the position.
“I’m not going to discuss any discussion in terms of detail that I have had with my caucus colleagues.”
Collins also pushed him out of his upper inner sanctuary. But the national leader is sure that all her parliamentarians are happy with the decisions she made and that there is no disappointment.
“I wouldn’t say anyone was,” he said. “No, not that I know of.”
The Collins reorganization is about rebuilding the credibility of the National Party, specifically financial credibility.
Collins read the room, the boardroom, and acknowledged that the party had lost the trust and backing of the business community, basically the backbone of the National Party.
So to get that back, Collins went through each of his deputies’ CVs and found people with real financial and accounting credentials and placed them in those crucial economic roles.
National’s electoral beating meant that its 55-member group was reduced to 33, while Labor surpassed 65 MPs.
“There is no doubt that we are going to benefit and I hope New Zealand will therefore benefit from the fact that we have such a wide range of experience, talent and representation in our caucus,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Wednesday. .
That colossal victory was not due just to 50 percent of the party’s votes, but because seats turned red across the country. Ardern is doing something of a victory lap in the next few weeks, visiting those constituencies, starting in New Plymouth.
Speaking in Taranaki on Wednesday, he said “the opportunity to thank all the Labor supporters here is really important to us.”
It is the first of many stops to come.
