National MP Andrew Bayly disputes Cabinet resignation, months later

Friday, 31 October 2025

Luxon was talking to reporters in South Korea overnight, after Bayly said he would not have offered his resignation if he knew at the time what he knows now.

Months after resigning from Cabinet, National Party MP Andrew Bayly has sought to re-litigate the circumstances behind his resignation, suggesting he was misled by officials over a complaint of inappropriate touching.

But Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, speaking from South Korea, has insisted Bayly “made the right decision to resign”.

“It's been a tough time for him … as he's adjusted to the decision that he made to resign, and I get that,” Luxon said.

“I think he made the right decision.”

Bayly has publicly revisited the circumstances which led to his February resignation in a Thursday interview with Newstalk ZB journalist Barry Soper, and in a subsequent LinkedIn post and email message to his Port Waikato electorate contacts on Friday.

The Post contacted Bayly directly for comment on Friday. A staffer responded to decline on his behalf.

Bayly had in February conceded he touched the arm of a staffer in an “inappropriate” manner during an “animated discussion”, prompting him to resign as ACC and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister, to hold “myself to account”.

'Concerns have been raised with me about a recent incident in which my behaviour towards a staff member was overbearing and for that, I am deeply sorry,“ he said, in February.

“I took the discussion too far, and I placed a hand on their upper arm, which was inappropriate.”

On Friday, however, Bayly said in the following months “new information has come to hand”.

Simon Watts and Rima Nakhle join Andrew Bayly as he confirms his resignation as a minister in February.

“I have now learnt that no formal complaint had ever been made against me. That was contrary to my belief at the time,” he said, in a statement.

“Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the concerns had not (and have not) been proven.”

He said he had requested of the Public Service Commission an independent inquiry into the event, a request that was declined.

“I was informed that all three people in the meeting corroborated the claim. Based on this information, and that I did not wish to cause a distraction to the National Party, I took the decision to resign,” he said.

“It was a huge personal sacrifice, and I was devastated.”

Both the commission, and the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), which Bayly claimed in the ZB interview had provided the misleading information, declined to comment on Friday.

Luxon said he was not aware that Bayly was going to speak publicly about this, but knew there had been conversations between Bayly and his staff.

“The bottom line is that I had information at the time, information today, I look at it and I go, ‘Yep, he made the right decision’.

“There were concerns that were raised with DIA. They were put to Andrew. He made the decision to resign, and I accepted that resignation.”

He said he would have sacked Bayly, if he had not resigned.

This incident followed an earlier occasion that Bayly had apologised for.

In October 2024, a winery worker alleged Bayly told him to: “Take a bottle of wine and go home, go on, go home … take some wine and f… off,” and allegedly Bayly made the L sign on his forehead.

Bayly admitted making the L sign, but denied swearing at the worker, and apologised for what he said was a light-hearted exchange which had gone wrong.