Kerre Woodham: Labour's done a pretty good job of rebranding as new and exciting, but...

We have the cabinet reshuffle, of course, and although to me it's simply shuffling the same pack of cards, the same deck that has the same jokers and the same wildcards in it.

You would have to say that Labour's done a pretty good job of rebranding itself as new and shiny and exciting.

We no longer have a Minister for Covid, thank heavens. We do have a Minister for Auckland the first time since Judith Tizard was Minister for Auckland. You wouldn't have to do much to better her performance.

So you know, Michael Wood doesn't have a terribly high threshold. After leaving Auckland to languish and lockdown for the better part of a year, the Prime Minister has decided that Auckland is in fact important, and important enough to have its own minister.  

More interesting is going to be rather than the reshuffling of the deck is what policies are going to be put on the back burner and what the PM has decided to forge ahead with. 

He's made it very clear that the focus is going to be on cost of living, on the fact that people are doing it tough. And this new look Government will be focusing on that.

So more interesting to me is going to be the policies.

What's he going to shelve? What's he going to focus on to reinvigorate the economy? You can't just keep taxing people to get your money. You need to have successful small business to have a successful country.

So that is what the Prime Minister is going to need to focus on. 

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