{"id":12166,"date":"2026-04-20T05:54:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T17:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=12166"},"modified":"2026-04-19T16:08:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T04:08:58","slug":"i-lost-balance-wood-explains-shares-saga-as-he-plots-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=12166","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI Lost Balance\u201d: Wood Explains Shares Saga as He Plots Return"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By Mike Bain\/cvnznews.com<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Former senior Labour minister Michael Wood says he \u201clost balance\u201d during his time in Cabinet and accepts full responsibility for the airport\u2011shares saga that forced his resignation in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking in an interview on <strong>TVNZ\u2019s Q+A programme<\/strong>, Wood said he had begun the process of selling his Auckland Airport shares by instructing his broker, but admitted he failed to ensure the sale was completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was a hard\u2011driving Cabinet minister, working 80 to 90 hours a week and pushing major reforms,\u201d he told Q+A. \u201cIn parts of my life, I lost balance \u2014 and sorting out the shares was one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wood resigned from all his ministerial roles \u2014 transport, immigration, workplace relations and safety, and Minister for Auckland \u2014 after repeated reminders from the Cabinet Office to resolve the conflict of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He told Q+A the episode created difficulties for then\u2011Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and said he has since apologised to several colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Labour has selected Wood to contest <strong>Mount Roskill<\/strong> again, a seat he held from 2016 until 2023, when National\u2019s Carlos Cheung flipped the long\u2011held Labour electorate by 1564 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of Wood\u2019s flagship initiatives have been dismantled by the current government.<br>He noted on Q+A that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The <strong>Clean Car Discount<\/strong>, which subsidised electric vehicles, ended in December 2023 after costing more than $300 million.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Auckland Light Rail<\/strong> was cancelled before construction began, despite around $228 million already spent on planning and design.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Wood criticised the government\u2019s approach to climate policy, saying it was difficult to build long\u2011term frameworks \u201cwhen you have a party that wants to play culture\u2011war games and label anything to do with climate as woke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wood, who sits on Labour\u2019s Policy Council, told Q+A the party will release further policy after the Government\u2019s Budget on <strong>May 28<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Mike Bain\/cvnznews.com Former senior Labour minister Michael Wood says he \u201clost balance\u201d during his time in Cabinet and accepts full responsibility for the airport\u2011shares saga that forced his resignation in 2023. Speaking in an interview on TVNZ\u2019s Q+A programme, Wood said he had begun the process of selling his Auckland Airport shares by instructing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[305,1038,113,257],"coauthors":[709],"class_list":{"0":"post-12166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-labour","9":"tag-michael-wood","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12168,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12166\/revisions\/12168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12166"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}