Labour newbie Dr Ayesha Verrall has been catapulted straight into Cabinet, taking on the roles of Minister for Seniors, Minister for Food Safety, Associate Minister of Health, and Associate Minister of Research, Science and Innovation.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed her Cabinet this afternoon. Two of the losers are Jenny Salesa & Phil Twyford, who have been demoted out of Cabinet.
Salesa has lost all her ministerial warrants. Twyford, who was the Minister responsible for KiwiBuild, now holds the portfolios of Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control, Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth, Associate Minister for the Environment and Associate Minister of Immigration. But all are outside the inner circle of Cabinet.
Andrew Little is Health Minister, while Chris Hipkins takes on the new job of Minister for Covid-19 response.
Epidemiologist Dr Verrall is a first-term list MP and the only newbie to be brought inside Cabinet.
She told Checkpoint she got the call from Jacinda Ardern at the weekend.
"I was surprised, and we talked through the options, and how we would make it work."
Dr Verrall said she had not made requests for any particular roles, but had tried to be prepared for any possibilities.
"They're really important areas. As a doctor in a hospital I've worked with a lot of seniors at times of difficulty and crisis in their lives, and through that work gotten to know a lot about their circumstances and aspirations, and I want to learn a lot more and deepen that knowledge through engagement with the sector throughout this term, and meeting people in the community.
"I'm really excited to be implementing our plan for an Aged Care Commissioner which is really important as well.
"It's an important watchdog role and it also has the ability to make sure that standards of care are met in the sector, and that's really important because some of the people are in a position of vulnerability.
"It's important to have a watchdog there to make sure standards are kept, and they can also raise issues directly with Parliament."
She said sometimes in her medical work she has seen instances where standards for aged care have not been met.
Formal delegations are yet to be worked out, Verrall says, but as Associate Health Minister she has been asked to work in the public health area.
"And one of our key public health commitments in the election was to be smokefree by 2025, and that's a really ambitious goal and will require a lot of focus to make sure we reach it.
"I think it's really important that we work to achieve it because there are 5,000 preventable deaths a year due to tobacco.
"There are well-established measures for getting us from where we are to there. The challenge will be building the consensus around them, and that's the work ahead."
Dr Verrall said she voted yes to the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill in the referendum.
"Cannabis smoking is harmful, however I voted for the referendum, because the harms of people who smoke being criminalised were ones I wanted to avoid."
She also voted yes for the End of Life Choice Act.
"I found that a really tough vote and talked a lot to colleagues in medicine, and also to advocates, and decided to vote in favour."
On Covid-19, Dr Verral said elimination is "absolutely" the best strategy.
"You just need to look around the world to see that you can't just have a little bit of Covid. If you let a few cases in you end up with an outbreak soon enough. So always pushing towards elimination is the only way to protect us from these large-scale outbreaks.
"I think we're taking briefings on these issues in the next few days and while I have expertise in this area I don't want to preempt what officials are going to describe... I'm going to listen to those and make sure that in this new role I'm taking all the advice that I can.
"I'm eager to hear what the watch the progress on discussions of bubbles with other countries are, and the specific criteria that will be used to determine if they're safe."
Dr Verrall has only had a chance at a quick conversation with new Health Minister Andrew Little.
"I'm really looking forward to working with Minister Little and supporting the work he's doing on the Health and Disability system review implementation."
It is a big step for a new MP to be given ministerial roles in Cabinet so quickly, but Dr Verrall said she has had experience taking on big jobs.
"Ever since I was really young I have taken jobs where there have been big responsibilities. When I was 24 I'd been night rostered to work in a hospital with support only on the end of the phone, and so I just need to approach this job with the same diligence and hard work and conscientiousness I have all my others, and I just need to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground and go about it in a conscientious way."
She does not know yet where she will be in the Beehive.
"Currently my office is my handbag and my car. So I'm looking forward to sorting that out."
