Jason Walls: Newstalk ZB political editor previews the National Party caucus retreat

National's upcoming caucus retreat is set to take place tomorrow - as the Party recovers from Sunday's surprise Cabinet reshuffle.

Prime Minister Chris Luxon raised a few eyebrows following his ministerial shakeup, with multiple MPs being moved down the rankings and losing their portfolios.

Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls says Luxon cares about generating results, and he's not above chopping and changing to move forward.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Walls, welcome back to the program.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Oh, thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Andrew, congratulations on your first and at talkback. How was
it for you?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
I honestly loved it, I really did. It's you know,
talk a lot of people you've talked back a really
bad name and say it's really boring, or cast dispersions
on the people that call. But I really enjoyed it.
You get to talk to some really fascinating people and
get a lot of opinions on things. So yeah, I
hope to be back at some point.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
I heard you talking to one fellow who had been
using the Working for Family tax credits about school uniforms,
and you were very honest and it was very good.
You shaid, I've never had to apply for these, how
do you do it? And how do you get the
money in your account? And I also have never had
to apply for that because it came and well I
would never have got it anyway. I've never had a
benefit of my life anyway. That's what was educational about
that show. You did very well. But let's get back

(00:45):
to your real business and let's talk about the National
Party Caucus retreat starts tomorrow. How are they feeling.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
You know, I think they're probably a bit of a
mixed mood within the National Party care Caucus. I mean,
the reshuffle were to put the fear of God into
many MPs. I mean, Luxin's proved a few times now
that if you're not performing, he's more than willing to
demote you with seemingly no remorse. I mean, he's extremely
focused on this team that he's put together, and I've

(01:12):
always said that his biggest strength is the team that
he puts together. And the more and more that he
does these sort of chopping changings to get what he
likes to say, his aces in his places, the more
and more I think this is probably where his strength
as the Prime Minister lies in his ability to delegate.
But you know, there may be these things may be
weighing on the sort of the more middle of the
pack ministers with the likes of James Meager and Chris

(01:36):
Pank and a few others looking to climb the ranks.
And so if they're doing well, I mean the Prime
Minister might be looking at clearing a little bit more
dead would soon, so they've got to be watching their back.
There's also this poll that came out last week where
national slid four and a half percentage points to now
they're in the twenties to twenty nine, lower than the
Labor Party, and that will be weighing on the MPs

(01:56):
as they meet for the first time this year in Hamilton.
Theme is, as I understand it and get this economic growth,
surprise surprise. In that poll, the one that we're talking about,
more people said that they had a worse economic out
look on the economy than the other way around. So
more people think that we're on the worst track than
the right track, which is a death mark for any government.

(02:18):
So they'll be working on the messaging around that in
terms of what they'll be doing well. As I understand
that Rocket Lab CEO and founder Peter Back is doing
a session with MPs about innovation and what it means
for the economy, so hopefully that's going to put them
on the straight and narrow when they get back to it.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Can I just say that poll was linked and that
poll was done by Courier, and the Courier, of course,
is the operation run by David Farrer, So I believe
that there was a reason why the poll was linked,
and that changes in the air for the National Party
over the course of the next couple of months. Now
Stats n z it has clear final order over its
actions during the sentence. But there's another investigation too, and

(02:55):
this is into the use of official data at the election.
So where where's that all at?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Indeed, So it's interesting because there's a few things happening
within investigations to Statistics New Zealand and a couple of
other places. Now you'll remember that there were some eyebrows
raised when Statistics New Zealand, through the Finale Aura, used
one hundred dollars food vouchures in a bid to get
primarily Mary to do their census in twenty twenty three.
But STATS instead of being cleared of any wrongdoing over this,

(03:22):
and that's because it was done under a contract to
enhance far Now contribution basically to encourage and support Finale
participation rate in the census. The contract stated that this
could include the use of grocery vouchers of up to
a million dollars of the five mili contract which could
be set aside for these sorts of incentives. So the
fact is the report actually said that these efforts significantly

(03:44):
increased MARY participation in the census. So there it is
that one's all clear, one down, one to go. Now.
The second one is around allegations of the misuse of
personal data at Manurewa Marai up in Auckland. So this
investigation was sparked by allegation that census data and COVID
nineteen vaccination information collected at that Marai had been misused

(04:07):
for Tea Party Mahty's election campaign. So the Marii was
also a voting site. I'm sure you remember. Takutai tash
Camp was the party's candidates in the local Marti seat
of Tamaki Mokoto and she went on to win the
seat by just forty two votes, the slimmest of margins.
In addition to this, she was the Marii's chief executive
at the time. Now TI Party Mary has strongly rejected

(04:30):
any allegations of wrongdoing and they've welcomed the investigation and
President John Tamahiri, who is also the CEO of way
Perea Trust, which is also being investigated, has called for
quote hard evidence to substantiate these claims. Public Service Commissioner
Sir Brian Roach had said he had hoped the report
would be released by the end of last year, and

(04:51):
it was first meant to be released actually in September
September the sixteenth. Of course, none of those things happened.
In addition to this, at the end of life last year,
the Electual Commission admitted they got it wrong by putting
a voting booth at Manurewa Marai. So after that, Nikola
Willis said that she had been advised by the Public
Service Commission that they want more time to ensure that

(05:13):
both natural justice processes are completed satisfactorily and that they
can respond effectively to the findings in the report. So
we can now expect the results of that investigation by
the end of this month. So we've got a few
more days and the time the clock is ticking.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Absolutely good stuff and I thank you for more from
hither Duplessy Allen Drive Listen live to news talks it'd
be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.