In the new Labour government, Grant Robertson has the job of Deputy Prime Minister after Kelvin Davis turned it down. He talks to Lisa Owen about the new team.
"I'm very humbled and honoured to have the role. I've enjoyed working with the prime minister over the last three years as finance mnister and to take on the deputy role just gives me another opportunity to support her in doing her job.
"She had asked Kelvin Davis, as she said today, to consider the role. And after the election he came back and had said to her that he did not want to take it up, so she raised the possibility with me once he'd said that.
"Kelvin himself today said he wants to focus on some of the things that have drawn him to Parliament. He came here as he said as the MP for Tai Tokerau.
"He's got a passion for the work he's now going to be undertaking in the children's space, but also continuing the work in Corrections, and he wants to play to his strengths and he took the decision that being deputy prime minister was not the role that he wanted.
"You've got to want to do a job like deputy Prime Minister, so I think given that, it was clear for Jacinda that she needed to find somebody else to fill the role.
"It's basically a support role for the prime minister. She can't be in two places at once and so there's plenty of occasions where someone needs to fill in. And I'm very very happy to do that.
"I've been around Parliament for a long time I've seen various people wanting to take the role, so I've got a good guide as to as to how those people have done it. Clearly Sir Michael Cullen is someone I've looked to from the finance portfolio. He also fulfilled the role of deputy prime minister and finance minister ... so I'll continue to draw on his advice, along with others."
Regarding demotions of MPs like Phil Twyford, Robertson said they are questions for the prime minister, as she made the call.
"But as she said today, we didn't make the progress we wanted to, particularly in the housing area, and that she's decided that she wants now to move forward with Phil playing a different role.
"He's still a minister outside Cabinet because he does have a lot to offer us in his role he's an experienced MP, so we look forward to working with him there. But we didn't make the progress we wanted to in a couple of the areas that he was responsible for and the prime minister has indicated that was the reasoning behind her decision.
"The situation for all prime ministers is that the allocation of portfolios is up to them. Of course the Prime Minister talks to her colleagues, consults ... we had a number of conversations about about the line-up and what she was looking for in the people, the enormous talent that we've got on this team. But I'm just one person giving that input to her, ultimately these decisions, as they are for any prime minister, fall to them.
"I think [Nanaia Mahuta] will make a terrific Minister of Foreign Affairs. She's somebody who I've worked closely with over a long period of time but particularly in the last three years, and her ability to develop strong relationships, her very strong sense of being from New Zealand I think is going to serve her very well in that role.
"And I think it's about time we hit a female Minister of Foreign Affairs, we haven't had one before, and Nanaia is going to do a terrific job of that."
Robertson would not be drawn on which MPs needed persuading into their roles.
"It's an iterative process, these conversations start. [Ardern] often would come back to a person, perhaps once twice or even three times to talk about different roles, it's about matching skills to roles, looking at teams.
"For example, you've seen our very strong health team that's come out today, it's about matching different people within that so that we cover the full ground.
"I think everybody in our team understands that it's a massive honour and privilege to serve as a minister and within the executive, and so people are unlikely to turn many things down or need to be cajoled, we all want to be part of the team that's delivering good outcomes for New Zealanders.
"I think we owe respect to our whole team, to recognise that there are only so many positions and so not everybody can get them.
"What I've witnessed since the election is the most unified and committed group of people in our caucus. All of them have jobs to do whether they're in the executive or outside."
Robertson said the Covid-19 economic and health response priorities for the new government will be hard work.
"I recognise that Covid-19's health and economic impact store to be fully felt. My bit of the equation is particularly around the economic impact. And we are going to have to work very hard as a country over the next few years to recover and rebuild and get that 'build back better' approach going.
"So we're going to have to be careful, we're going to have to be balanced in the programme as we put forward at the election but I've got a lot of optimism about New Zealand. I see the New Zealand economy doing better than people expected, plenty of headwinds to come, but I've got huge optimism about our country and our resilience."
With such a large majority in Parliament, Labour faces the risk of second term arrogance as a government.
But Robertson said Jacinda Ardern has warned against complacency.
"The prime minister has been extremely clear with all of her colleagues that our job is a privilege and a right that has to be earned, and re-earned, every day. I don't think there's anyone on our team who takes that for granted.
"No one is complacent about the job that's in front of us. We are humbled by the result we got in the election, and we have to continue to earn New Zealanders' support every single day.
"I think the lesson we have to draw from other governments is it's vitally important that we remember what a privilege and an honour this is, and it is actually I think one of the character traits of our Prime Minister that she is a person who is very humble and very aware of the privilege that we've got, and she transfers that onto the rest of her team. So I'm certainly not going to be forgetting that anytime soon."
