Cabinet Reshuffle: Big jump for Amy Adams

Monday 2nd April 2012

Primary Industries Minister David Carter will shoulder responsibility for the local government reforms announced by former Minister Nick Smith, while Tim Groser and first-time Cabinet Minister Amy Adams will take the climate change and environment portfolios respectively.

Prime Minister John Key announced the minor reshuffle required by the relinquishment of three key portfolios by former Minister Nick Smith, who resigned last week over misjudgements in support of a friend’s compensation dispute while he was Minister for the Accident Compensation Corporation.

The Minister in charge of New Zealand’s international climate change negotiations, Tim Groser, will also take on the domestic climate change portfolio, while maintaining responsibility for international trade negotiations.

The biggest winner is Selwyn MP Amy Adams, who came into Cabinet for the first time in this term of Parliament and who will hand on her Internal Affairs portfolio Napier MP Chris Tremain, a Minister outside Cabinet, will move up to be a Minister in Cabinet at number 20 on the Ministerial list.

Simon Bridges, an MP and current chair of the powerful finance and expenditure select committee will now become a Minister outside Cabinet, and could see National’s Epsom candidate and the committee’s current deputy, Paul Goldsmith, step up early to a senior backbencher’s role in his first parliamentary term.

Bridges will be the new Consumer Affairs and Associate Transport Minister, taking over from Tremain, and will also be Associate Minister for Climate Change Issues.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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