New Zealand Prime Minister John Key named openly gay MP Christopher Finlayson as the nation’s attorney general during cabinet announcements made today.

“Christopher Finlayson will be the Minister Responsible for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, and Attorney-General,” said Key. “He will be responsible for keeping up the pace of Treaty settlements which we have seen in recent times.”

The Treaty of Waitangi is an agreement made between the British government and the New Zealand’s Maori natives.

Having previously served as the National Party’s shadow attorney general, last year Finlayson called for the review of the “gay panic defense.”