He’s ditched the suit and tie – and is all smiles reflecting on his nine-year political career.

Todd Muller has been the Bay of Plenty MP since 2014 – and is calling it quits at the 2023 general election after feeling as though he “doesn’t have enough left in the tank”.

With years of experience door knocking and navigating the “yappy dogs” belonging to seemingly “every home” in Pāpāmoa, Muller says he has “absolutely loved” getting to know his electorate and representing them in Parliament.

Across the country, Muller is known as the shortest-serving leader of any political party represented in Parliament, after resigning as the National Party leader 53 days after taking up the reigns in 2020.

Great privilege

Despite this, he says there are “no regrets” in his roller-coaster career, and views his famously short time as the National Party leader as a highlight.

 “It was a great privilege to be the leader of the National Party. You know, it will always be defined by the fact I wasn’t there very long, and the unfortunate events I had to walk through afterwards, but it’s a highlight.”

Outside of his short stint as the party leader and battle with his mental health, Muller says there are no bad memories during his time in Parliament.

“When I look back over those nine years, with the exception of obviously having a pretty public breakdown, I absolutely loved it.”

Highlights

Muller says major highlights of his political career include becoming the Chairman of Foreign Affairs and Trade, visting New Zealand troops in Iraq, going to America to see Trump, Obama and Clinton in person, and working to get the Zero Carbon Bill up with Climate Change Minister James Shaw.

Todd Muller traveled to Iraq as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2017. Photo: File/SunLive.

As part of the Zero Carbon Bill, Muller and Shaw set up an independent commission to advise successive governments on how to best go about the journey of decarbonisation.

“Bipartisanship is relatively rare in New Zealand politics. To have bipartisanship on an issue as important as climate change, I think, it was really critical and is still critical.

James Shaw

“I’m really proud of being able to pull that together with James Shaw. I credit it to him. He was the [Minister of Climate Change] and opened his office and said ‘let’s to this together’ and that’s pretty special to be able to do.”

When asked who the best politicians to work with, Muller says Shaw comes to mind, despite describing his party’s policies as “largely mad”.

On who were the worst politicians to work with, Muller simply says “they know who they are”.

Muller says he feels Covid-19 "knocked the stuffing" out of the local community and country. Photo: File/SunLive.

Looking at the future of the Bay of Plenty and the wider country, Muller says New Zealand’s capacity to deal with internal challenges “worries” him.

“I do feel Covid-19 knocked the stuffing out of us, both as a community and country in general.

“I worry it is going to take a fair amount of turn around to get us back where we need to be. There are some big questions for New Zealand around how we want to grow as a country, where we want to be in terms of population, and how we are going to fund things.

“For better or for worse, Governments have decided to borrow money. Now we have to decide how to grow out of it. Should we be more aggressive with immigration? How to we manage that? How do we speed up the building of things?

“It’s one thing to commit to infrastructure building, which is clearly what has happened, but we seem to have lost the ability as a country to build quickly and efficiently. We seem lost in this morass of process and grumpiness. That’s going to take more than a couple years of good governing to turn around.”

Home

On returning home to his family, Muller says it has been “fantastic” to be back home with his wife Michelle and kids Bradley, Amelia and Amy – who are finding it “happily strange” to have him back.

And as for his next steps, Muller says he is planning on picking up “a mix of things” both locally and nationally in a portfolio as opposed to one job, but is not prepared to say what they are just yet.