New Zealand Prime Minister John Key resigns after 8 years

It’s easy to forget, after eight years leading a stable centrist government as the most popular Prime Minister in New Zealand history, that John Key’s political career has been built on surprises.

Kiwis have taken to social media to express their shock at the news of Key’s resignation.

He gave his resignation speech in his third term and just ahead of an election year where many thought he would seek a fourth term.

He said his wife Bronagh had been “amazingly supportive” and did not pressure him to stand down. Unfortunately, few leaders do it this way, and their political lives “end in failure” – as British MP Enoch Powell once rather brutally put it.

Mr Key “has done an extraordinary job for New Zealand”, Turnbull added.

New Zealand’s National Party caucus will decide a new party leader and Prime Minister on December 12.

While there were mis-steps – notably a failed attempt earlier this year to ditch Britain’s Union Jack from the New Zealand flag – Mr Key’s approval ratings remained stubbornly high.

“Sometimes you’ve got to make hard decisions to make right decisions”, Key told reporters.

While Mr Key has tried to convince leaders it could function without the United States, a TPP without the United States is a major blow for New Zealand’s trade aspirations.

World news sites including CNN, Reuters and BBC have shared the news that John Key resigned.

Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott played on their two nations’ cricketing competition to mention Mr Key had have a “great innings”.

“The economic numbers are looking good but there are people who are being left out, being left behind”, Mr Little said.

The shock news sent the New Zealand dollar falling by almost 1%.

The National Party is set to meet next week to elect Mr Key’s successor. He welcomed the Maori Party into government and turned his back on Don Brash’s divisiveness and as a National leader raised benefits in real terms for the first time since the 1990s. The NZ Herald reported English is expected to become PM and Steven Joyce to become deputy and finance minister.

Key, a multi-millionaire who worked at banks including Merrill Lynch, won office for the Nationals in 2008, ending the nine-year rule of Labour’s Helen Clark.

However ANZ senior economist Phil Borkin said he did not expect Key’s resignation to have a lasting effect on the currency.

English is considered the frontrunner to replace Key as prime minister in a party vote planned for next week.

Rather than radical reform, Mr Key presided over a series of micro reforms to try and boost the country’s economic performance.

The next prime minister, whoever it is, has post-earthquake reconstruction to think about and inherits an economy that only appears on the surface to be doing well.