MPs spitting the dummy
In his exit speech and interviews, former Green Party co-leader James Shaw revealed that, more than once, he had reached the brink of resigning as a minister on a point of principle — the principle being not getting what he wanted. Valedictories are good like that. They can reveal crises we never knew about at the time.
In the end, whether because of the threats or despite them, Shaw chose not to spit the dummy. The Labour Government in 2021 increased its emissions targets on the eve of the Glasgow climate change conference at which Shaw was representing New Zealand.
Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson in his recent valedictory speech also revealed facetiously that Labour leader and former Education Minister Chris Hipkins threatened to resign each year.
“I also want to thank Chippy for not following through on his annual threat to resign during the education budget process,” said Robertson.
He was not the only Labour minister to make life difficult for Robertson. Maori Development Minister Willie Jackson refused to sign off on Budget 2022 as all ministers are required to do — normally a sackable offence.
But Jackson is said to have held out until Maori ministers were allocated the same $1 billion they had got in targeted funding in the previous year’s Budget collectively across housing, education, health, whanau ora and other services.
It worked. The 2022 press statement on the Beehive website says: “Our proven track record in delivering for Maori is underscored by this year’s Maori Budget, which once again exceeds $1 billion.”
The exact amount of extra funding Jackson extracted is not known but it was not mere crumbs.
There are other examples that have changed the course of history, some of which involved people being offended at their treatment. In 1979 Matiu Rata, the MP for Northern Maori resigned from the Labour Party in Opposition after he was shifted off the front bench to make way for David Lange. He saw it as an insult to Maori and went on to form Mana Motuhake, which became part of the Alliance.
Ruth Richardson, who had been Jim Bolger’s Finance Minister in the first term of his Government, 1990 to 1993, was not reappointed to finance in the second term and refused any other Cabinet appointment. Despite the Government having a tiny majority, she took a decision to resign from Parliament altogether, once the Fiscal Responsibility Act had been passed in 1994.
David Lange himself resigned as Prime Minister on a point of principle in 1989. His former Finance Minister, Roger Douglas, had previously resigned on a point of principle in 1988 after Lange stopped his flat-tax proposal. But after the caucus re-elected Douglas back into Cabinet in 1989, that was seen as a vote of noconfidence in Lange.
National was not immune to turmoil in Opposition. Jim Bolger’s deputy leader, Don McKinnon, resigned as shadow defence minister before the 1990 election after the party changed its position to support Labour’s law banning nuclear weapons and nuclear-propelled vessels.
McKinnon, along with a third of the caucus at the time, believed National should accept nuclear propulsion but not weapons. Doug Graham held the foreign affairs portfolio, which McKinnon claimed after the election that year.
In 2004, Tariana Turia was an associate minister when she quit Labour over its response to the foreshore and seabed Court of Appeal decision and formed the Maori Party.
David Parker resigned as Revenue Minister on a point of principle after Chris Hipkins as Prime Minister ruled out a wealth tax, although some saw it as a selfish act that damaged the party just before the election.