My article of May 26, 2026, Stuart Nash, Cabinet Confidentiality, and Winston Peters’ Standards Has Misconduct Stopped Mattering: or is it another case of amnesia? ended this way:
The Herald article concluded with a quote from Peters:
“Potential coalition partners have to live [up] to a thing called political reality or what is known as realpolitik, [which is that Stuart Nash] is going to be a New Zealand First MP and Cabinet minister.”
Potential coalition partners ought to make it a bottom line in a coalition agreement with NZF that Nash is not a Cabinet minister as his previous conduct shows he is completed unfitted to occupy such an important position of trust. If Peters does not understand, he forfeits any entitlement to be in a position of influencing the decision.
Earlier in my article I had said,
… perhaps Winston feels so strongly that Nash’s selection may be politically advantageous to NZ First that he has completely forgotten that Nash got booted from Cabinet for inexcusable misbehaviour, behaviour that in the UK would likely have precipitated an investigation about possible misconduct in public office, and even in New Zealand may have warranted investigation concerning the linkage between the donations Nash had received and his opposition to the Cabinet decision.
Last night Winston Peters accepted Nash’s resignation as NZ First’s Napier candidate after Nash had sent an intemperate email to former National Party MP, Christopher Finlayson KC, about National’s Napier MP. That Finlayson publicized the email is completely unsurprising.
By his decision to accept Nash’s resignation, Peters was ‘living up’ to a ‘political reality’, but what was it? Was it belated recognition that he, Peters, had made a mistake and now realized Nash is unsuited to public office? Or was it the ‘political reality’ that he, Peters, had made a different mistake in thinking that embracing Nash would be politically advantageous?
Gary Judd KC is a King's Counsel, former Chairman of ASB and Ports of Auckland and former member APEC Business Advisory Council. Gary blogs at Gary Judd KC Substack where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
Winston making mistakes? Never been heard of in the history of the Universe. Except October 2017 of course when he sold his soul to Labour for a bauble or two.
Wow I’m really distracted by this and angry about something to do with bad recruitment. How is the unemployment rate going under the Peters coalition anyway? And inflation, how’s that going I wonder.
How to put this politely. Gary Judd is being very polite when he writes: “That Finlayson publicized the email is completely unsurprising”.
Moral of the story, never send an email of any kind to Chris Finlayson. You would never know what it might be used for. What stood out to me was that Finlayson somehow wangled an appearance on the TV news, in Parliament grounds, to read out what sounded like the entire email.
To the point where I do not understand what the Nash/Finlayson connection could have meant in the first place.
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