Todd Muller really hasn’t gotten a handle on this leadership thing yet.
When he took over Simon Bridges wanted demanded Foreign Affairs. Muller said no.
It turns out that if you are vacillating and under attack for not being woke enough, and you need some brown faces in your senior line then principles are optional.
National leader Todd Muller has given the man he ousted the foreign affairs portfolio in his caucus reshuffle, but not a high ranking in caucus.
He has also promoted Dr. Shane Reti to Paula Bennett’s number 13 spot, making him the highest ranked Maori MP in the National caucus.
Muller announced his second reshuffle this morning following the announced retirements of both Bennett and Anne Tolley over the last week.
Bennett’s retirement left Muller with no Maori MPs anywhere near his front bench, with the first in his caucus rankings being Reti at number 17.
Bridges was left unranked and without a portfolio in Muller’s first reshuffle. He had been offered the justice portfolio but declined, instead pushing for the prestigious foreign affairs role.
Muller’s campaign chair and former foreign affairs minister Gerry Brownlee previously held the role.
Deputy leader Nikki Kaye will take on the women’s portfolio from Bennett, while Amy Adams will pick up the wider drug reform portfolio.
“[Bridges] had expressed an interest in foreign affairs and I agreed to that,” Muller said.
He indicated Bridges could move further up the rankings at a later date given his seniority.
When he won the leadership Muller said Bridges would have a place in his shadow-Cabinet – the top 20 – should he want it.
Muller said moving Reti up into Bennett’s place gave him an opportunity to do that today.
Well, I’m sorry but that is just pathetic.
No should mean no. Instead Muller has told his caucus that no actually means ‘not yet’.
The worst aspect of this is that Todd Muller has capitulated to the woke brigade who were attacking him for not having enough brown people in senior roles, even though when National did have brown people in the top two slots the same woke brigade said they were the wrong kind of brown.
Capitulating to the woke mob will never make them happy or vote National.
People don’t vote on diversity, they vote on who is the more competent.
National should have drawn a line in the sand and said they pick people for jobs based on ability rather than on the basis of race, sexuality or any other diversity quota criteria.
They could then have said that they aren’t like Labour – they don’t provide protected jobs for poofs, Maori or incompetents.
Then they could have pointed to the utter failure of Ministers like Nanaia Mahuta (Brown and Incompetent), Phil Twyford (Incompetent), David Clark (Incompetent).
They’ve also missed a trick with the resignation of David Clark and his replacement being Chris Hipkins, not the two brown people who were the Associate Ministers. Unless of course Chris Hipkins was chosen because he’s ginger. Then there is the failure of Ardern to replace the failed white male minister with a brown, female minister.
If you want to play the diversity card then you can have it played right back at you, but only if you have the principles to ignore stupid arbitrary interest groups.
The same people demanding diversity spots are also the same people who will tell you that we are all equal. It doesn’t compute.
I certainly will never accept that there are better political commentators out there or bigger audiences. I’m the best in the country at what I do, and the most popular. The stats and audience back that up.
Picking spokespeople should be on ability, not a happenstance of birth.
Todd Muller failed that test; he showed he still is as wet as an ocean and he also has the spine of a jellyfish.
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