The Post’s political awards: Politician of the year, rookie on the rise and the rest

Saturday, 27 December 2025

One of these Christophers is winning politician of the year.

As the political year comes to a close The Post’s political team has put their brains together to send out bouquets and brickbats across Parliament. Read on to find our pick for politician of the year and far more.

Rookie on the rise: Green Party MP Francisco Hernandez

Hernandez was number 17 on the Green Party list at the last election. He probably saw this - quite reasonably - as impossibly low. But the former student unionist, climate bureaucrat and inveterate online poster found himself in Parliament halfway through 2024, and has made an incredible fist of it. He is probably the hardest working researcher in Opposition, with dozens and dozens of written questions to ministers, and knows enough about the news to sort the wheat from the chaff. He is also somehow still funny online - on LinkedIn, of all places. One to watch.

Opposition MP of the year: Chris Hipkins

A winner by default more than anything else. Hipkins has chosen very few battles to fight but he has fought them fairly well. But his main role has been to step back and make headlines when he feels like it, not when he doesn’t. His oodles of political experience give him a fine ability to spot landmines and avoid them. He’s also managed to get a weak CGT through both his party and the public without serious backlash either internally or externally - no small feat.

Runner ups: Ayesha Verrall, Winston Peters

The hot potato award for most leadership changes: ACC

Te Pāti Māori very nearly finished the year on a high.

ACC has had three ministers this year (Matt Doocey, Andrew Bayly and Scott Simpson), two chairpeople of its board, and we’ve now learnt the chief executive will not be seeking another term.

Own goal of the year: Te Pāti Māori’s implosion

Te Pāti Māori could have had a great year. Refusing to turn up for the Privileges Committee was a silly stunt, but it played well for them. The Tāmaki Mākaurau by-election win in September, coming not long before the Government legislated away some of the customary title rights their party was formed to fight for, could have been the start of a real golden era.

Instead one issue of ill-discipline ended up spiralling into one of the most extraordinary implosions in recent political history - with two MPs expelled, an unsigned email making extraordinary allegations, much of the party machinery in open revolt - and finally a High Court ruling reinstating one of its MPs.

Runner up: Reserve Bank chairperson Neil Quigley’s media conference following the departure of former governor Adrian Orr.

The campaign to ban social media for under-16s has had remarkable traction.

Leak of the year: Labour’s CGT policy

Next time, leak it to us.

Campaign of the year: Banning social media for teenagers

Is it a good idea? Look, we should probably wait and see how it goes in Australia. But boy were the high-powered mums (mostly) behind B416 good at pushing this issue forward - so much so that by the end of the year the Government had three separate streams of work focused on it.

Fumble of the year: Pay equity

Judith Collins wins our quote of the year.

The Government was always going to have a hard job overhauling the Equal Pay Act, no matter how urgently it wanted to. But it didn’t have to be this bad. Ministers failed to prepare the ground for this shift or to take people with it, which was especially galling for all the groups in the midst of claims when the change was announced - who had been working for months or years on claims that were now worthless. Allowing ACT to crow about how the move had “saved the Budget” made the wider Government look absolutely callous.

Luxonism of the year: “Go make a marmite sandwich”

Education Minister Erica Stanford quite cleverly stayed away from the school lunches debacle. It was David Seymour who had said he would save millions of dollars on the scheme without seriously changing quality. But the hard thing about being the prime minister is everyone’s business is your business - and this line from Christopher Luxon did not manage to stem the bleeding on this topic. The opposite, in fact.

Select committee performer of the year: Ayesha Verrall

Labour has a lot of former ministers on various select committees, but none come close to former health minister (and doctor) Ayesha Verrall for making use of that experience.

Portfolio misallocation of the year: “Economic Growth” for Nicola Willis.

Chris Bishop is the main character of New Zealand politics.

Being finance minister is a full-time job, and one that requires you to say “no” lots. This is the productive tension at the heart of modern Westminster-style government - ministers fight their corner for increased resourcing while the finance minister pushes back and decides which of those bids deserve scarce funds. Economic development is the kind of policy space where you need someone really thinking out of the box, pushing for big bold ideas likely to be beaten into shape by a finance minister focused on the books. If you give both roles to the same person they simply cannot hold that productive tension within their own brain.

Policy rollout of the year: Chris Penk’s earthquake changes

A right-wing government loosening regulations that are intended to save lives is a tricky thing to do. But Penk’s office managed to sell this change as entirely reasonable and necessary, and came armed with screeds and screeds of documents to prove it.

Runner ups: Brooke van Velden’s Holiday Act changes.

Politician of the year: Chris Bishop

Chris Bishop is the main character of New Zealand politics. At press time he was not the leader of any major party (those are the other Christophers) but he often made more headlines than the rest of them put together. Bishop was the person most integral to all of the government’s most ambitious reforms, from the replacement of the RMA to rates capping to tolled roads of national significance.

Bishop is not the first “minister of everything” but he is one with an incredible level of prominence. He has used that prominence to reach out to voters who might not usually like National - such as young renters - and promise something that not even Labour will: lower house prices. That he can do this despite it clearly going against the prime minister’s wishes speaks to the level of power he has. He leaves this year the main threat to Luxon’s leadership and so powerful that firing him would be impossible for the prime minister.

Runners up: Chris Penk, Chris Hipkins.