Story by Chris Eichbaum

Main image: New National government's first cabinet meeting, November 2008

What is cabinet?

Cabinet is a group of ministers which makes major decisions about governing the country. The size of cabinet has grown over time. In the 1890s there were seven cabinet ministers. In the early 21st century there are usually around 20 ministers in cabinet, and up to eight ministers ‘outside cabinet’.

Each minister has areas of responsibility (portfolios), which often relate to a government department or ministry.

Cabinet usually meets once a week.

What cabinet discusses

Cabinet considers and makes decisions about important things such as:

• government policy
• proposals that will affect the government’s finances
• proposals that will affect New Zealand’s constitution or change the structure of the public service
• new laws
• appointments to government boards
• international treaties.

Cabinet guidelines

Cabinet was started by convention rather than by an act of Parliament. Its procedures, which have evolved over time, are described in theCabinet manual.

Cabinet committees

Cabinet ministers are also members of one or more cabinet committees, which consider issues in more detail than is possible in cabinet. Each committee has a specific area of interest, and new committees can be established if needed. For example, a new committee was formed after the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquakes.

Collective responsibility

Cabinet is based on three major principles:

• Unanimity – once a decision has been made by cabinet, all cabinet ministers have to support and defend the decision in public, no matter what their personal views on the decision are.
• Confidentiality – everything said in cabinet is secret. This is so that ministers can say what they really think and have robust debates.
• Confidence – cabinet and the government need to have the confidence of Parliament.

Changes since MMP

Since the introduction of the mixed-member proportional electoral system in 1996, governments have been formed following negotiations between a large party and smaller support parties. Government ministers from the support parties are usually ‘ministers outside cabinet’. Processes were developed to allow the governing parties to ‘agree to disagree’ on some issues.