MPs Jenny Salesa, Carmel Sepuloni new Cabinet Ministers in NZ Government

Two Labour MPs of Tongan descent have been named in New Zealand Prime Minister-elect Jacinda Ardern’s list of Labour MPs who will make up her Cabinet.

The two MPs are Jenny Salesa and Carmel Sepuloni.

The 16 Labour MPs who will make up the majority of the cabinet ministers of the new government are in alphabetical order:

Jacinda Ardern
David Clark
Clare Curran
Kelvin Davis
Chris Hipkins
Iain Lees-Galloway
Andrew Little
Nanaia Mahuta
Stuart Nash
Damien O'Connor
David Parker
Grant Robertson
Jenny Salesa
Carmel Sepuloni
Phil Twyford
Megan Woods

Labour has also announced a further five ministers who will sit outside Cabinet:

Kris Faafoi
Peeni Henare
Willie Jackson
Aupito William Sio
Meka Whaitiri

1 News reports New Zealand First will hold four Ministerial positions, while the Greens will have three outside Cabinet. 

Ms Ardern said the Labour Cabinet Ministerial positions were decided through election by the Labour team at 2pm this afternoon in accordance with the party’s written rules.

The Ministerial positions outside of Cabinet were decided by Ms Ardern.

Ms Ardern touched on the difficulty of her decision.

"I was absolutely spoilt for choice when I came to this decision of who would make up our team, we have an enormous depth of talent, of expertise, of experience both inside this house and outside of it," she said.

Ms Ardern said she would take the weekend to allocate portfolios to the list of ministers.

This she said would involve discussion with New Zealand First.  

Ms Ardern said the Greens have already signed off on what their ministerial positions will be outside of cabinet, but she will wait to announce what those are at the same time as all the portfolios are released next week.

 

Photo: I News. Caption: New Zealand PM-elect Jacinda Ardern