Disgraced MP Stuart Nash has confirmed he will quit politics at this year’s election.
Nash was turfed out of cabinet last week after it emerged he had revealed private information to Labour Party donors. He confirmed at the time he wouldn’t trigger a byelection in his Napier electorate by quitting immediately, but also would not say whether he intended to contest the 2023 election.
In a post shared to his personal Facebook page, Nash said the decision to step down was made after a long conversation with his family – and an “eye to the future”.
“Nearly six years in cabinet, nine years as the Member of Parliament for Napier and 12 years in parliament since 2008, have provided me with the most amazing opportunities to really make a difference to our country and my electorate of Napier. But it’s now time for someone else with passion and drive to step up,” he said.
“There are many many highs – and a couple of obvious lows – and I have made a number of life-long friends from both sides of the House as well as up-and-down this wonderful country.”
Nash said it had been his privilege to serve in cabinet under former prime minister Jacinda Ardern “managing crisis after crisis after crisis, while driving forward an ambitious and progressive agenda of continuous economic and social improvement and transformation”.
He continued: “While the work has been very rewarding, and both intellectually and professionally stimulating, it has also been incredibly taxing on relationships with family and friends. It’s now time to address this balance.”
Nash’s statement ended with a lengthy quotation from US president Theodore Roosevelt that Nash said was one his favourites: “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
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