Jones and Carter to be demoted

The Herald reports:

Shamed Labour MPs Shane Jones and Chris Carter are expected to be demoted ahead of Tuesday’s caucus for their credit card spending while they were in government.

I think that is an astute decision by Phil Goff.

That will mean freeing up their two major portfolios as well as their rankings – possibly to the new crop of MPs.

Mr Carter is foreign affairs spokesman and is ranked No 7, and Mr Jones is environment spokesman and ranked No 11.

Leader Phil Goff returns tomorrow from China. He is thought to want some issues sorted before the caucus on Tuesday. A fuller reshuffle is likely later.

Who to promote has two aspects to it. Who do you move to the front bench, and who do you give their portfolios to.

The two Labour MPs most deserving of front bench status in my view are Charles Chauvel and Grant Robertson. They will both clearly be senior Ministers in a future Labour Government.

As it happens, they both also have the experience to take up the portfolios up for grabs. Grant is a former MFAT staffer and would be an easy fit to Foreign Affairs. Charles has been very involved in climate change issues, so Environment also an easy fit.

However neither of them are particularly close to Goff, being more from the left of the party and very close to Clark.