New Zealand minister resigns after he 'placed hand' on staff's arm

In what he called "overbearing" behaviour, New Zealand's trade minister Andrew Bayly "placed a hand" on a staff member's upper arm last week, leading to his resignation as a government minister.

Bayly said he was "deeply sorry" for the event on Monday, characterising it as a "animated discussion" rather than an argument.
He is still a parliamentarian.

His resignation follows criticism he received last October for allegedly using an expletive directed at a winery employee and labelling them a "loser" while placing his fingers in a 'L' shape on his forehead. He later apologised in public.

In a statement announcing his resignation, Bayly stated, "As many of you know, I have been impatient to drive change in my ministerial portfolios."
"I had a heated conversation about work with a staff member last week. I inappropriately touched their upper arm and carried the conversation too far.
He stated that a complaint had been filed, but he would not go into any detail about the specifics.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon later informed a press conference that Bayly resigned last Friday and that the event occurred three days earlier, on February 18.

 

According to Luxon, the government's response to the problem in just one week was "pretty quick" and "pretty impressive" on Monday. In response to a question about whether the 63-year-old may return to another ministerial role, he responded "never say never" and denied that he should have asked Bayly to resign after the winery incident in October.
Chris Hipkins, the head of Labour, slammed Luxon for being "incredibly weak" and said that the staff member incident shouldn't have been prolonged over the weekend.
"Christopher Luxon has once again set the bar for ministerial behaviour so low, that it would be almost impossible not to get over it," he stated to reporters on Monday.

According to Bayly, he "would have had difficulty" communicating when he had to speak with his family.

 

In 2014, he was elected to the New Zealand Parliament for the first time as a member of the National Party, which is currently in power. After Luxon was elected in late 2023, he was named Minister of Statistics, Minister of Small Business and Manufacturing, and Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.
Following a cabinet change earlier this year, he was also named minister for the national accidental injury compensation program, or ACC. Bayly was a finance professional before entering politics.
According to Luxon, the ACC and Commerce and Consumer Affairs ministries would be taken over by National's senior whip, Scott Simpson.

 

The recent dissolution of the Māori Health Authority, which was established under the previous Labor government to attempt to promote greater health equality, and the introduction of a bill that many claimed undermined Māori rights have been among the government's policies that have drawn criticism for being perceived as anti-Māori.