Face of the Day

Christopher Luxon’s Cabinet reshuffle made two things very clear on Thursday.

Firstly, that the Prime Minister doesn’t trust one of his most competent ministers enough to leave him in charge of his party’s election campaign.

And secondly, he’s become aware New Zealand First and ACT are doing a better job of winning over the rural vote.

Those two realisations resulted in Chris Bishop being unceremoniously dumped as campaign chair just seven months out from the election, and first-term MP – the relatively unknown Wairarapa farmer Mike Butterick – being thrust into a ministerial role.

Luxon seemed surprised that his ditching Bishop for Simeon Brown as campaign chair would be a talking point.

Asked for the rationale he pointed to the “workload” Bishop was under.

RNZ