Michael Wood had been described as a "rising star" and a "potential future Labour leader" with "immense capacity" during his tenure as a senior Cabinet minister in the previous Labour government.
But in June 2023, he resigned from his suite of ministerial titles – transport, immigration, workplace relations and safety, and Minister for Auckland – after it was revealed he had failed to divest himself of shares in Auckland Airport, despite 12 requests from the Cabinet office for him to manage the potential conflict.
Wood told Q+A he "lost balance" trying to keep up with the demands of being a minister and that he owned his mistakes.
He said he did start the process of divesting by directing his broker to sell but admitted he "didn't follow through" to ensure it had been done.
"I was a hard-driving Cabinet minister. I worked 80- to 90-hour weeks. I was driving through huge reforms. In parts of my life, I lost balance, and sorting out [the shares] was one of them," he said.
He acknowledged the saga created difficulties for Chris Hipkins' Labour government and said he has apologised to several of his colleagues from the time.
The Labour Party had selected Wood to contest the Mount Roskill electorate in Auckland once more, a seat he held from 2016 until 2023, when National's Carlos Cheung won the former Labour stronghold by 1564 votes.
Much of Wood’s major policy platforms from his time as a minister were scrapped since the government changed. The Clean Car Discount, which subsidised the upfront cost of electric vehicles, ended in December 2023 and cost over $300 million to run.
Auckland Light Rail was also cancelled before work started in earnest, after estimates put the project’s budget at up to $29 billion, with $228 million already sunk on preparatory work.
"It is difficult to imagine how you create an enduring framework when you have a party that wants to play culture war games and say that anything to do with climate is woke," he said.
Wood, who sits on Labour's Policy Council, said the party would be releasing more policy after Budget Day on May 28.
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