New Zealand\'s Prime Minister has won a majority in the New Zealand General Election 2020. She will now be able to enter government without the need for other political parties as Labour gained 18 seats giving them a majority of 4 seats in the Parliament. The Greens, who formed part of the out going coalition government, had a 2 seat gain. However, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and his party NZ First lost all of their seats. The main outgoing opposition party, National, lost 21 seats, with ACT gaining 9 seats. The Maori Party will return to the parliament with one MP. Jacinda Ardern will now form a one party government the first since 1993.

An Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, has appointed his 3rd Minister for Agriculture, Food and The Marine since he took hold off office in June 2020. Charlie McConalogue takes the ministerial brief following the departure of Dara Calleary in August, he took the role from Barry Cowen in July. President Micheal D. Higgins appointed Mr. McConalogue as Minister on Wednesday the 2nd of September, 2020, presenting him with is Seal of Office.

The Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, has postponed the countries general election until the 17th of October due to public health concerns and the COVID-19 pandemic. The election was due to be held on the 19th of September. She spoke with all of New Zealand\'s party leaders and she has said that she will not be changing the date again. This will mean that the New Zealand Parliament will dissolve on the 6th of September and the close of nominations will be on the 18th of September.

Just 17 days as Taoiseach and Micheal Martin has announced a reshuffle of his cabinet team. The President (Micheal D. Higgins) provided Daragh Calleary with his seal of office as the Minister for Agriculture. This follows the fall out from Barry Cowen's drink driving admission. Jack Chambers takes over as Government Chief Whip and Minster of State for the Gaeltacht and Sport.

The Minister for Agriculture, Barry Cowen, has been stepped down by An Taoiseach, Michéal Martin. Last week it was reported that the Minister had been banned for drink driving on a provisional license in 2016. He made a speech in the Dáil soon after the story emerged, however on Sunday (12th July, 2020) The Sunday Time provided more information on the controversy, including that he\'d tried to avoid a Garda checkpoint on the day in question.

News of the general election and the cornavirus have seen both RTÉ ONE's and VMT ONE's audience share increase dramatically. RTÉ's total TV audience for Feburary 2020 was 29%,it was up 7% from January, and up 14% from February 2019. Virgin Media had an average audience of 18% an increase of 11% since January, but down 3% from February 2019.