Political parties are struggling to find reliable talent to fill their ranks, as NZ First’s Stuart Nash embarrasses himself and Te Pāti Māori’s Tākuta Ferris defies party

New Zealand First has discovered the dangers of recruiting failed MPs from the major parties after its latest recruit caused a scandal when he made disparaging remarks about women. 

A big reveal at the party’s conference last weekend was that it had secured the support of two outcasts from previous National and Labour governments.

Former National backbencher Harete Hipango and former Labour cabinet minister Stuart Nash both made speeches in support of NZ First.

Hipango had a few minor scandals related to Parliamentary expenses and anti-vaccine protests, which saw her bumped down the National Party list and out of Parliament in 2023.

Nash was sacked from Labour’s Cabinet that same year. He’d already had to resign as Minister of Police and been reprimanded for interfering in operational agency processes.

The final straw was when it was discovered he emailed critical information about Cabinet discussions to two donors, both commercial property owners, during the pandemic.

He was dropped from Cabinet and chose not to contest the 2023 election. It looked like the end of his political career, until he began writing columns and appearing on political panels as an NZ First surrogate. 

This stirred speculation he was angling to reenter politics under a new banner.

Outlaws and rebels

NZ First has always been a home for political outcasts. Winston Peters founded the party in 1993 after being fired from a National Party cabinet and told he couldn’t run for re-election.

Shane Jones, the party’s de-facto deputy leader, had his portfolios removed more than once while in opposition as a Labour MP and resigned after a Hail Mary leadership bid in 2013.

But other minor parties have also recruited underperformers from the major parties. 

Te Pāti Māori convinced demoted Labour minister Meka Whaitiri to defect ahead of the 2023 election, only for her to lose the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate and deny her new party a sweep of the seven Māori seats.

The Act Party recruited former National Party backbencher, Parmjeet Parmar after she failed to secure a National candidacy for 2023 despite putting her hand up for three different seats. 

While not a notable talent, she hasn’t caused trouble for her new party. Except perhaps, when she inquired as to whether Parliament had the authority to imprison Te Pāti Māori MPs.

A better example might be when former National Party leader Don Brash took over leadership of the Act Party only to see its support crater from 3.7% in 2008 to 1.1% in 2011.

Picking disgruntled or discarded candidates from the ranks of major parties carries significant risk and shows the struggle all parties face in finding serious talent. 

Some gamble it is worth accepting some baggage to secure candidates with experience. 

This hasn’t paid off for NZ First in the short-term. Stuart Nash only made it 72 hours into his political comeback before landing himself in hot water with “crude and disrespectful” remarks about women — to use his own words. 

During an interview on The Platform, Nash was asked to give the definition of a woman. This is a question often asked to gauge whether a politician is ‘woke’ or not.

The former minister gave a crude answer which used sexualised language to describe female genitalia. Nash even prefaced the joke with a warning it got him into trouble before. 

It appears experience is no substitute for good judgement. 

Public life 

While NZ First doesn’t like its candidates to be woke, the party does care about declining standards in public life and doesn’t appreciate politicians using crude language. 

Plus, the anti-transgender movement is driven largely by traditional feminists who would not have enjoyed Nash’s sexualised definition of their identity.  

Winston Peters told Newstalk ZB the words “weren’t acceptable” and that Nash had reflected on that publicly with a public apology on LinkedIn. 

It wasn’t exactly the scandal of the year, but it does illustrate the difficulty parties are having just finding candidates who won’t embarrass themselves — let alone govern effectively. 

Another sign of this struggle have been recent mid-term resignations from backbench MPs. 

NZ First’s Tanya Unkovich quit to do lifecoaching, and the Green Party’s Benjamin Doyle will step down after struggling to cope with hate messages. 

The next person on the Green Party list, Mike Davidson at number 19, was initially unsure whether he would take the open seat or focus on his community board election.

It's not a great sign when even list candidates and sitting MPs are passing up opportunities to be in Parliament… 

However, there has been some surprisingly good news in local government. 

The number of candidates running in local body elections is at a six-term high, although that may reflect fewer incumbents standing for re-election.

There’s no easy way to parse the quality of the 3500+ candidates running across 78 councils, but on sheer numbers alone it seems like there has been an increase in interest.

Te Pāti Māori schism 

As an aside, first-time MPs can be just as troublesome as former politicians attempting a comeback. This has been illustrated this week by open rebellion in the ranks of Te Pāti Māori. 

Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris has defied his party leaders by refusing to take down a social media post which has been described as “racist” by people on all sides of politics. 

Last week, he posted an Instagram story criticising ethnic minorities for helping Labour MP Peeni Henare campaign in the Tamaki Makaurau by-election. 

This post was removed and the party apologised on Ferris’ behalf. However, the MP doubled down in a second social media video once the by-election had ended. 

He later told a Stuff reporter he had only taken the initial post down to protect the by-election candidate, Oriini Kaipara, and not because it was racist.

Ferris’ went on to say he had “equal mana” to his co-leaders and that they hadn’t asked him to take the new video down, anyway.    

The Labour and the Green parties both say Te Pāti Māori’s co-leaders have contacted them privately to apologise and have disavowed Ferris’ view.

While the co-leaders have been promising a public statement for days, they had yet to produce one as of Friday afternoon. It appears they have been unable to bring the MP back into line, and may not have the full support of its caucus.  

The party also demoted its Parliamentary whip this week, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, and handed her responsibilities to co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. 

It is unclear if this is related to the dispute with Ferris, but one reason to make such a change would be to consolidate authority and prevent dissension within the caucus ranks.

Political parties seem to face problems whether they recruit tired talent or fresh blood.