January 20, 2025 • 14 mins
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has kicked off the political year with the first major reshuffle of his Cabinet.
Dr Shane Reti has lost Health to Simeon Brown and has been bumped down Cabinet rankings, while Melissa Lee has been stripped of all portfolios, in favour of first-term MP James Meager.
Today on The Front Page, we’re joined by NZ Herald political editor Claire Trevett to discuss the big winners and losers.
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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Sound Engineer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Culor. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and this
is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the
New Zealand Herald. Prime Minister Christopher Luxen has kicked off
the political year with the first major reshuffle of his cabinet.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Going to be a lot more to say in the
coming days and weeks ahead on our plan to unleash
growth this year. Today I can announce that that fresh
focus also means refreshing my team. In addition to her
role as Minister of Finance. I'm really pleased that Nicola
Willis will become Minister of Economic Growth.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Doctor Shane Ritti has lost health to Simeon Brown and
has been bumped down cabinet rankings, while Melissa Lee has
been stripped of all portfolios in favor of first term
MP James Meaghan. Today on the Front Page, we're joined
by m Zied Herald political editor Claire Trevette to discuss
the big winners and losers. So first off, Claire, can
(01:01):
you give us an overview of which portfolios of traded
hands and who are national has a new job to do?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
So the biggest moves, of course, was Shane Retty being
dumped out of health and simm and Brown being put
into health. That's the kind of one that scrabbed most
of their attention so far. Beneath that was Nikola Willis
being given a much more kind of I've called her
the Grand Poobar of all things to do with money
in the economy. She's got her economic growth portfolio added
(01:31):
to her finance portfolio, which gives her more of a
I guess helicopter view of the whole economic program that
the government is trying to drive. So it puts the
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment or mb as it's
easier to call it, under Nikola Willis's watch kind of
boosts up that side of things as well as finance,
which is mainly treasury, so they're kind of not really conflicting,
(01:54):
but you might say complimentary sectors of the kind of
fiscal management and economic management are now both under Willis's watch.
And that was the change that was mainly highlighted by
Christopher Upsy, because he's very keen to highlight his own
attempts to put a kind of laser focus on the economy,
which is one of the biggest areas of problem for
(02:15):
any government, and at the moment. In particular, it's one
that the government can easily get on the back foot
on as his health, to be honest, so he's trying
to kind of bring fixits in for two of the
biggest problems that they're facing the year. That meant Nichola
Willis lost her public service portfolio. She won't necessarily be
unhappy about that because she's a Wellington based MP who
stands in Wellington electorates and for the last year she's
(02:38):
had to stand there and tell all the public servants
of Wellington that they're going to be losing their jobs
and there's cuts coming and all that kind of stuff,
So she won't be upset about that. That's gone to
the very capable hands of Judith Collins and Simeon Brown
has lost his beloved Potholes fund in the Transport portfolio
that's gone to Chris Bishop, and Energy and Local Government
(03:01):
have both gone to Simon Watts, who is something of
the kind of I guess quiet achiever. His ranking hasn't changed,
but he's been given those two pretty hefty portfolios, which
is a reward for his competent handling of in his
first year. I guess as a Minister because he's performed
pretty creditably in his previous ones, so those are kind
of the big keynotes. There's one minister out, which is
(03:21):
Melissa Ly. There was no real reason given for Melissaly
losing the place. She was the only MP of of
Asian descent in the cabinet and was Ethnic Communities Minister.
She had been demoted from cabinet earlier because of lut
since dissatisfaction with her handling of the media and broadcasting portfolio.
I was a little bit surprised by that move, to
(03:42):
be honest, and I'm assuming it's performance based, but Lutson
may have ongoing concerns about her performance, but he didn't
spell that out to his credit. Maybe that was a
bit of an optical move for I guess a government
which has always struggled with questions around its diversity to
do that. So a little bit risky making that move,
but it hasn't got that much attention yet.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
In twenty twenty five, health will also be a priority
area for our government and last year Shane RITTI worked
hard to reset the culture and also the performance of
Health New Zealand. We established targets and we refresh the
leadership of Health New Zealand, and I'm confident the organization
is heading in a much better direction than it was
when we entered office. But I've also heard New Zealand's
(04:25):
as concerns they expect to see even more progress key
we's ensuring that they can access polity care they need
when they need it, and so to deliver on that expectation,
I've decided to appoint Simon Brown as Minister of Health.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So did Shane Ritty actually do a bad job as
Health Minister? Or is it just him taking the fall
for the issues that the health sector is facing anyway?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
And I think it's really necessarily either of those. I
don't think he did a bad job as such. He
did an adequate job of some of it. It's in
Christopher luxen Refe rained from putting it down to his
performance as such. He kind of justified as saying, well,
as circumstances change and as issues get more prominence, he
looks at whether or not the right person's in the
right job or not. Now, when Shane Betty was first
(05:14):
appointed to that was the health sector looked a lot different.
The Government's found out a lot more since then, and
big changes have happened to it. It has become a
big issue for the government. All the headlines are on
things like deficits and sacking the boards and less the
levy warning of radical reform being needed. There's ongoing. It's
always high in the public's mind. It's been creeping up
(05:36):
the issues of most concerned to voters, and so he's
decided that the time has come to put a more
political hardball in. I guess which he thinks is Simmy
and Brown, because Simeon has proved to be a fairly
quick and decisive actor in his transport and local government
portfolios in particular. So it's kind of a big test
for Simon Brown. He has given lucks and reason to
(05:58):
put that test to him. Be interesting to see what
he does, So we will wait and see. It's the
first social kind of portfolio that Simeon has had. He's
always had kind of economic portfolios, so it will kind
of round him out in that way. He's kept a
vague foot in the door of the economic portfolios by
kept getting state owned enterprises portfolio as well. She used
(06:18):
to be with Paul Goldsmith, and I think that's predominantly
so he still has some economic portfolio under him, and
interestingly he's also maintained the jobbers minister for Auckland, which
is predominantly because he's built a very constructive relationship with Auckland,
where Wayne Brown.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Judith Collins and Chris Bishop as well are picking up
quite a lot of slack in this announcement. With seven
portfolios each, is that a bit too much for a
minister to handle? Do you think it is?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
It is quite a lot. It often depends on the portfolios.
Bishop's a pretty big and there's a lot happening in
all of them. He's lost his favorite portfolio, which is
s bored in recreation, but he's kept an associateship. It's
often the case, and it was the same with the
former Labor government, that a handful of ministers get a
massive workload and the rest of them don't get quite
(07:16):
so much of a workload. So he's picked up transport
of course, which does dovetail in a bit with his
infrastructure portfolio and also with housing when it comes to
things like new housing developments and stuff like that. But yeah,
that's quite a lot. Judith Collins is the most experienced
minister that they have, so she will be fine some
of her portfolios aren't that public facing, so she hasn't
(07:39):
got the same public pressure on her. The biggest one
she's picked up is that public service one, and she's
shared science, Technology and Innovation to Shane Theirs, which is
one of his new portfolios. So they have kind of
had something taken off their hands to fit in the
new portfolios that they've taken on. But it is a
start contrast from some of the ones at the bottom
of the cabinet ranking, such as Matt Doc who has
(08:03):
had one, two, three portfolios taken off him and an
associate portfolio and now as only Minister for Mental Health,
and to be honest, the only reason he is still
in cabinet is because he's the only South Island mp
I suspect, So that's a clear sign that he is
kind of Next time LUTs and moves, it's lightly Doc,
you'll slip out of cabinet. He's clearly not that enamored
(08:25):
with Dooce's performance if he cannot trust him to have
more than one portfolio.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I've also decided to appoint James Meager as a minister
outside cabinet.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Prime minister with great power comes great responsibility and I
know that you will discharge that responsibility as a man
with great courage, conviction, conscientiousness and compassion.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
He will take on responsibility for the Hunting and Fishing
and Youth portfolios and become an Associate Minister of Transport.
He'll also take on a newly created role of Minister
for the South Island.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And then on the other hand, we've got a first
term MP James Meager who's stepping up now are three
portfolios and an associate. What can you tell us about him?
Do you think he's sort of one of National's next
big stars.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, James Megha's quite well known. He used to work
in Parliament. He used to work for some ministers back
in the day and so he kind of knows the
ropes a little bit, which is always a bit of
an advantage he's been given. He's been made Minister for
the South Island, which is the other signal for Ducy
that he could well be replaced by James Meager if
Mega works well. He was chosen by Christopher Luxen to
(09:39):
give one of the first two maiden speeches. The other
one was Katie Nimman. I suspect that when he was
deciding who he would put in Luxeon was tossing up
between James Mega and Katie Niman and opted for James
because he was the South Island option and because he
does have that previous experience in Parliament and they have
only been in p's for a year, so that's kind
of probably where came into play. So he is also
(10:02):
the chair of the Justice Select Committee, so he's had
a chance to show that he's up to the job,
you know, up to a fairly senior job because the
Justice Select Committee has been one of the most tested
over the last years the government's justice reforms have gone through.
He will stay as chair as well as being the
Minister for the Treaty Principal's Bill submissions because he's started
all the work on that, so they didn't want to
disrupt all that at the last minute. So it's a
(10:24):
good opportunity for him and I'm sure that he will
be pretty quickly into Cabinet if he proves his stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Any other surprises that we with mentioning about this reshuffle,
Mark Mitchell getting ethnic Communities is an interesting choice.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, there is a little bit of logic in that.
I mean, they didn't have anyone who hearted from the
Asian communities or other ethnicities really to give it to,
and it went to Mark from what I can gather,
because he already deals relatively closely with those communities and
his police portfolio or in order and crime is always
(10:57):
a big issue at the meeting involving the Asian community,
so he already meets with them very regularly. He's also
on Auckland Empey, which is where it's concentrated, and he
pretty much goes to every event that there is happening,
so it adds a bit of a load on him.
He also picked up spored and recreation, which is quite
(11:18):
a good one to have, to be honest, but he
hasn't lost anything, so it's a bit of an increased workload.
It's not that great in terms of perception. I guess
that there are no Asian politicians for that portfolio to
go to, and he will be relying on the likes
of their kind of backbench MP's Paula Garcia and Nancy
Low to help him with that one. So it has
(11:39):
caused a little bit of mirth, I have to admit,
and so we'll see how he goes on that. But
he's just a naturally chatty person and always turns up
to things. So I guess the bonus. The bonus for
those ethnic communities is the meant their minister is now
in cabinet again, whereas Melissaly was outside cabinet. So there's
that too.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
And so just to wrap it up just overall clear,
do you think this is a winning reshuffle?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Well, we'll wait and see. I think that it's the
right time to do it because he's had a year
to assess whether or not which ministers are performing well
in their portfolios and which aren't. And the ones who
are performing well haven't changed that much. And that includes
the Law and order groupings that includes Erica Stanford, the
lights of those, they've been left to focus on what
they're doing well Already. He's clearly attempting to address the
(12:24):
economy and health. It's a big test for sim and Brown.
We'll see how that goes off. I suspect that Simeon
will be He has said that his main focus will
be improving waiting times for GPS and the time it
takes for patients to get surgical treatments. That kind of
thing takes time. Their issues, there are staff shortages and
stuff like that. So I suspect he will be also
(12:45):
wanting to get a few quick runs on the board
through things like the infrastructure spending in health like they
rebuilt of Dunedin Hospital is rankled in the South Island
for a long time now and they need to come
up with a solution for that. That kind of stuff
is what I suspect he'll be trying to get his
kind of quick early hits on to show that he's effective.
But say, yeah, we'll see how it goes. It's kind
(13:06):
of aimed at setting them up for the twenty twenty
six election. I'm sure there'll be a few nips and
tacks between then and now, but I wouldn't be expecting
to see another massive reshuffle prior to election yere and
other than if ministers decide that they're leaving in their
twenty twenty six they'll get reshuffled out when they make
those decisions. But yeah, it's a medium sized reshuffle. I
aimed at scratching some issues of concern for lux in
(13:29):
health and economic growth and showing they're focusing on those areas.
So we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Thanks for joining us, Claire, a pleasure. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at zidherld dot
co dot nzied. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills.
I'm Richard Martham. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
(13:54):
for another look behind the headlines.
Culor. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and this
is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the
New Zealand Herald. Prime Minister Christopher Luxen has kicked off
the political year with the first major reshuffle of his cabinet.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Going to be a lot more to say in the
coming days and weeks ahead on our plan to unleash
growth this year. Today I can announce that that fresh
focus also means refreshing my team. In addition to her
role as Minister of Finance. I'm really pleased that Nicola
Willis will become Minister of Economic Growth.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Doctor Shane Ritti has lost health to Simeon Brown and
has been bumped down cabinet rankings, while Melissa Lee has
been stripped of all portfolios in favor of first term
MP James Meaghan. Today on the Front Page, we're joined
by m Zied Herald political editor Claire Trevette to discuss
the big winners and losers. So first off, Claire, can
(01:01):
you give us an overview of which portfolios of traded
hands and who are national has a new job to do?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
So the biggest moves, of course, was Shane Retty being
dumped out of health and simm and Brown being put
into health. That's the kind of one that scrabbed most
of their attention so far. Beneath that was Nikola Willis
being given a much more kind of I've called her
the Grand Poobar of all things to do with money
in the economy. She's got her economic growth portfolio added
(01:31):
to her finance portfolio, which gives her more of a
I guess helicopter view of the whole economic program that
the government is trying to drive. So it puts the
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment or mb as it's
easier to call it, under Nikola Willis's watch kind of
boosts up that side of things as well as finance,
which is mainly treasury, so they're kind of not really conflicting,
(01:54):
but you might say complimentary sectors of the kind of
fiscal management and economic management are now both under Willis's watch.
And that was the change that was mainly highlighted by
Christopher Upsy, because he's very keen to highlight his own
attempts to put a kind of laser focus on the economy,
which is one of the biggest areas of problem for
(02:15):
any government, and at the moment. In particular, it's one
that the government can easily get on the back foot
on as his health, to be honest, so he's trying
to kind of bring fixits in for two of the
biggest problems that they're facing the year. That meant Nichola
Willis lost her public service portfolio. She won't necessarily be
unhappy about that because she's a Wellington based MP who
stands in Wellington electorates and for the last year she's
(02:38):
had to stand there and tell all the public servants
of Wellington that they're going to be losing their jobs
and there's cuts coming and all that kind of stuff,
So she won't be upset about that. That's gone to
the very capable hands of Judith Collins and Simeon Brown
has lost his beloved Potholes fund in the Transport portfolio
that's gone to Chris Bishop, and Energy and Local Government
(03:01):
have both gone to Simon Watts, who is something of
the kind of I guess quiet achiever. His ranking hasn't changed,
but he's been given those two pretty hefty portfolios, which
is a reward for his competent handling of in his
first year. I guess as a Minister because he's performed
pretty creditably in his previous ones, so those are kind
of the big keynotes. There's one minister out, which is
(03:21):
Melissa Ly. There was no real reason given for Melissaly
losing the place. She was the only MP of of
Asian descent in the cabinet and was Ethnic Communities Minister.
She had been demoted from cabinet earlier because of lut
since dissatisfaction with her handling of the media and broadcasting portfolio.
I was a little bit surprised by that move, to
(03:42):
be honest, and I'm assuming it's performance based, but Lutson
may have ongoing concerns about her performance, but he didn't
spell that out to his credit. Maybe that was a
bit of an optical move for I guess a government
which has always struggled with questions around its diversity to
do that. So a little bit risky making that move,
but it hasn't got that much attention yet.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
In twenty twenty five, health will also be a priority
area for our government and last year Shane RITTI worked
hard to reset the culture and also the performance of
Health New Zealand. We established targets and we refresh the
leadership of Health New Zealand, and I'm confident the organization
is heading in a much better direction than it was
when we entered office. But I've also heard New Zealand's
(04:25):
as concerns they expect to see even more progress key
we's ensuring that they can access polity care they need
when they need it, and so to deliver on that expectation,
I've decided to appoint Simon Brown as Minister of Health.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So did Shane Ritty actually do a bad job as
Health Minister? Or is it just him taking the fall
for the issues that the health sector is facing anyway?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
And I think it's really necessarily either of those. I
don't think he did a bad job as such. He
did an adequate job of some of it. It's in
Christopher luxen Refe rained from putting it down to his
performance as such. He kind of justified as saying, well,
as circumstances change and as issues get more prominence, he
looks at whether or not the right person's in the
right job or not. Now, when Shane Betty was first
(05:14):
appointed to that was the health sector looked a lot different.
The Government's found out a lot more since then, and
big changes have happened to it. It has become a
big issue for the government. All the headlines are on
things like deficits and sacking the boards and less the
levy warning of radical reform being needed. There's ongoing. It's
always high in the public's mind. It's been creeping up
(05:36):
the issues of most concerned to voters, and so he's
decided that the time has come to put a more
political hardball in. I guess which he thinks is Simmy
and Brown, because Simeon has proved to be a fairly
quick and decisive actor in his transport and local government
portfolios in particular. So it's kind of a big test
for Simon Brown. He has given lucks and reason to
(05:58):
put that test to him. Be interesting to see what
he does, So we will wait and see. It's the
first social kind of portfolio that Simeon has had. He's
always had kind of economic portfolios, so it will kind
of round him out in that way. He's kept a
vague foot in the door of the economic portfolios by
kept getting state owned enterprises portfolio as well. She used
(06:18):
to be with Paul Goldsmith, and I think that's predominantly
so he still has some economic portfolio under him, and
interestingly he's also maintained the jobbers minister for Auckland, which
is predominantly because he's built a very constructive relationship with Auckland,
where Wayne Brown.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Judith Collins and Chris Bishop as well are picking up
quite a lot of slack in this announcement. With seven
portfolios each, is that a bit too much for a
minister to handle? Do you think it is?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
It is quite a lot. It often depends on the portfolios.
Bishop's a pretty big and there's a lot happening in
all of them. He's lost his favorite portfolio, which is
s bored in recreation, but he's kept an associateship. It's
often the case, and it was the same with the
former Labor government, that a handful of ministers get a
massive workload and the rest of them don't get quite
(07:16):
so much of a workload. So he's picked up transport
of course, which does dovetail in a bit with his
infrastructure portfolio and also with housing when it comes to
things like new housing developments and stuff like that. But yeah,
that's quite a lot. Judith Collins is the most experienced
minister that they have, so she will be fine some
of her portfolios aren't that public facing, so she hasn't
(07:39):
got the same public pressure on her. The biggest one
she's picked up is that public service one, and she's
shared science, Technology and Innovation to Shane Theirs, which is
one of his new portfolios. So they have kind of
had something taken off their hands to fit in the
new portfolios that they've taken on. But it is a
start contrast from some of the ones at the bottom
of the cabinet ranking, such as Matt Doc who has
(08:03):
had one, two, three portfolios taken off him and an
associate portfolio and now as only Minister for Mental Health,
and to be honest, the only reason he is still
in cabinet is because he's the only South Island mp
I suspect, So that's a clear sign that he is
kind of Next time LUTs and moves, it's lightly Doc,
you'll slip out of cabinet. He's clearly not that enamored
(08:25):
with Dooce's performance if he cannot trust him to have
more than one portfolio.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I've also decided to appoint James Meager as a minister
outside cabinet.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Prime minister with great power comes great responsibility and I
know that you will discharge that responsibility as a man
with great courage, conviction, conscientiousness and compassion.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
He will take on responsibility for the Hunting and Fishing
and Youth portfolios and become an Associate Minister of Transport.
He'll also take on a newly created role of Minister
for the South Island.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And then on the other hand, we've got a first
term MP James Meager who's stepping up now are three
portfolios and an associate. What can you tell us about him?
Do you think he's sort of one of National's next
big stars.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, James Megha's quite well known. He used to work
in Parliament. He used to work for some ministers back
in the day and so he kind of knows the
ropes a little bit, which is always a bit of
an advantage he's been given. He's been made Minister for
the South Island, which is the other signal for Ducy
that he could well be replaced by James Meager if
Mega works well. He was chosen by Christopher Luxen to
(09:39):
give one of the first two maiden speeches. The other
one was Katie Nimman. I suspect that when he was
deciding who he would put in Luxeon was tossing up
between James Mega and Katie Niman and opted for James
because he was the South Island option and because he
does have that previous experience in Parliament and they have
only been in p's for a year, so that's kind
of probably where came into play. So he is also
(10:02):
the chair of the Justice Select Committee, so he's had
a chance to show that he's up to the job,
you know, up to a fairly senior job because the
Justice Select Committee has been one of the most tested
over the last years the government's justice reforms have gone through.
He will stay as chair as well as being the
Minister for the Treaty Principal's Bill submissions because he's started
all the work on that, so they didn't want to
disrupt all that at the last minute. So it's a
(10:24):
good opportunity for him and I'm sure that he will
be pretty quickly into Cabinet if he proves his stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Any other surprises that we with mentioning about this reshuffle,
Mark Mitchell getting ethnic Communities is an interesting choice.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, there is a little bit of logic in that.
I mean, they didn't have anyone who hearted from the
Asian communities or other ethnicities really to give it to,
and it went to Mark from what I can gather,
because he already deals relatively closely with those communities and
his police portfolio or in order and crime is always
(10:57):
a big issue at the meeting involving the Asian community,
so he already meets with them very regularly. He's also
on Auckland Empey, which is where it's concentrated, and he
pretty much goes to every event that there is happening,
so it adds a bit of a load on him.
He also picked up spored and recreation, which is quite
(11:18):
a good one to have, to be honest, but he
hasn't lost anything, so it's a bit of an increased workload.
It's not that great in terms of perception. I guess
that there are no Asian politicians for that portfolio to
go to, and he will be relying on the likes
of their kind of backbench MP's Paula Garcia and Nancy
Low to help him with that one. So it has
(11:39):
caused a little bit of mirth, I have to admit,
and so we'll see how he goes on that. But
he's just a naturally chatty person and always turns up
to things. So I guess the bonus. The bonus for
those ethnic communities is the meant their minister is now
in cabinet again, whereas Melissaly was outside cabinet. So there's
that too.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
And so just to wrap it up just overall clear,
do you think this is a winning reshuffle?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Well, we'll wait and see. I think that it's the
right time to do it because he's had a year
to assess whether or not which ministers are performing well
in their portfolios and which aren't. And the ones who
are performing well haven't changed that much. And that includes
the Law and order groupings that includes Erica Stanford, the
lights of those, they've been left to focus on what
they're doing well Already. He's clearly attempting to address the
(12:24):
economy and health. It's a big test for sim and Brown.
We'll see how that goes off. I suspect that Simeon
will be He has said that his main focus will
be improving waiting times for GPS and the time it
takes for patients to get surgical treatments. That kind of
thing takes time. Their issues, there are staff shortages and
stuff like that. So I suspect he will be also
(12:45):
wanting to get a few quick runs on the board
through things like the infrastructure spending in health like they
rebuilt of Dunedin Hospital is rankled in the South Island
for a long time now and they need to come
up with a solution for that. That kind of stuff
is what I suspect he'll be trying to get his
kind of quick early hits on to show that he's effective.
But say, yeah, we'll see how it goes. It's kind
(13:06):
of aimed at setting them up for the twenty twenty
six election. I'm sure there'll be a few nips and
tacks between then and now, but I wouldn't be expecting
to see another massive reshuffle prior to election yere and
other than if ministers decide that they're leaving in their
twenty twenty six they'll get reshuffled out when they make
those decisions. But yeah, it's a medium sized reshuffle. I
aimed at scratching some issues of concern for lux in
(13:29):
health and economic growth and showing they're focusing on those areas.
So we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Thanks for joining us, Claire, a pleasure. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at zidherld dot
co dot nzied. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills.
I'm Richard Martham. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
(13:54):
for another look behind the headlines.
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