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ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Nash earlier in the day stood by his call to the police commissioner.
Stuart Nash has resigned as police minister after admitting on radio he encouraged Police Commissioner Andrew Coster to appeal a court decision.
In doing so, opposition MPs said he’d done two things wrong: First, they said it was wrong to discuss the issue with police, given the commissioner is legally not responsible to ministers for decisions around law enforcement or prosecutions.
Secondly, Nash was directly criticising a decision of the courts – which is against Cabinet Manual rules.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins agreed, and accepted Nash’s resignation as police minister on Wednesday. But Nash would keep his other ministerial roles, including as minister for economic development, forestry and fisheries.
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On Wednesday morning, Nash said the sentencing decision was “a very bad decision”. He firmly stood by his criticism and call to Coster under repeated questioning, before going on to offer his resignation.
Hipkins said calling the commissioner to discuss the prosecution, and refusing to apologise for that, was “an error of judgement”.
“The minister has reflected on his actions and agrees it is no longer tenable for him to hold the police portfolio.”
Hipkins said Nash assured him this was the only instance he’d called the commissioner about a case. Coster has been asked to provide his recollection of the call, which happened in 2021.
Megan Woods would be acting police minister, until a permanent replacement was found.
Nash said he wasn’t the police minister at the time of the call to Coster, when asked by reporters about it on Wednesday morning. He firmly stood by his actions, reiterating that the sentencing he disagreed with was “a very bad decision”.
He described his call with Coster as “chewing the fat with a guy who was a mate”.
On Wednesday morning, Nash told Newstalk ZB he had called Coster to encourage him to appeal a court decision over a case where the defendant had been given home detention instead of a prison sentence.
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has accepted Stuart Nash’s resignation.
He said: “I’ve seen a couple of judgements, and actually one I phoned up the police commissioner and said, ‘surely you’re going to appeal this?’”
Hipkins said the initial call and his excuses for it on Wednesday morning where errors, and if Nash hadn’t offered his resignation he would’ve asked for it.
“It was a relatively brief conversation. He actually offered it via message to me … I believe that it was a serious error of judgement. And therefore I’ve accepted his resignation as soon as it was offered,” Hipkins said.
Attorney-General David Parker said Nash “shouldn’t have criticised the judiciary”.
“The Government should not tell prosecutorial decision makers what they should do in respect of criminal matters, and there was no appeal. So there’s no harm done,” Parker said.
Nash only started as police minister last month, after Hipkins – the former police minister – became prime minister. Although Nash, who’s been in Parliament on and off since 2008, had acted as police minister when Labour first came to power in 2017.
ACT leader David Seymour said this showed he was “boasting” about overstepping his powers as a minister.
National Party acting leader Nicola Willis and Greens’ co-leader James Shaw said it was the right decision for Nash to resign as police minister.
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