Sacked minister Chris Penk to return to Parliament next week

National MP Chris Penk will keep his 'honourable' title despite being stripped of his portfolios by the prime minister after mounting a leadership challenge against him.Penk will return to Parliament next week and continue to do work in his electorate until a new MP is elected at the November election.Penk, a senior MP and now former minister, holds the safe National seat - Kaipara ki Mahurangi - which he will no longer contest at the election.Paul Goldsmith, who picked up all of Penk's portfolios following last week's urgent caucus meeting, was musing running in the seat but publicly ruled it out on Sunday night.Luxon won a confidence vote on Wednesday after Penk mounted a challenge against him, which he told The Post he did on his behalf and nobody else's.Parliament is back sitting this week and on Tuesday morning the National Party caucus was meeting in-person for the first time since that hurriedly called meeting in recess last week.Senior MP Chris Bishop confirmed to RNZ the first he knew Penk was being demoted from his responsibilities was when Christopher Luxon put out a statement about it hours after the meeting ended.He wouldn't say whether the action, and Penk's subsequent decision not to contest the election, would be a subject of caucus discussions on Tuesday.Asked if he was surprised Penk was demoted, he said "not really, to be honest"."As I said last week, and I don't want to kind of go over well-trodden ground, but as I said last week, you mount a leadership challenge like that - it's a totally reasonable position for the prime minister to take."So I wasn't wholly surprised by it. I'm obviously disappointed for Chris, but that's what happens," he said.Prime Minister Christopher Luxon speaks to media after winning a confidence vote on 12 August.RNZ / Zach CornelisenAnother senior MP Erica Stanford, who has denied she was working with Penk last week, has acknowledged some of her departmental staff got it wrong when they went to the Beehive Theatrette to watch Luxon's press conference following the leadership vote.There had been speculation her electorate staff had been in Wellington that day, fuelling suggestions she was taking a run at the leadership.Stanford said none of her electorate, political, or campagin team were there, but some of her other staff "had a nosy"."They should not have done that, but that was unfortunate. I found out about that yesterday."I've had a conversation with them about that, but they were departmental staff from education and immigration - they weren't my political staff," she said.She reaffirmed her comments that she's "not interested in the leadership" and also denied she'd had any conversations with Finance Minister and deputy leader Nicola Willis ahead of the caucus meeting about what an alternative ticket and front bench could look like.National party president Sylvia Wood, who attends the caucus meetings, said the board backed Luxon and she didn't believe the party would lose votes in the fallout.Luxon was keen to move on and talk about "the pretty stark choice" between a National-led government and the alternative, and rejected the offer to name all ten of the portfolios Goldsmith now has on his plate."I don't need to play that game, mate," he responded.On Monday, Luxon told Morning Report Penk had been "working for himself" and had launched a leadership bid in caucus that failed.There had been been some suggestions Penk was merely the numbers man for either Erica Stanford or Chris Bishop.Both have denied that was the case.Bishop said he was "pretty annoyed" at some of the rumours going around and it was "completely unfounded". Stanford said she didn't challenge for the leadership and denied she was the "numbers guy" for Penk.