A mighty totara has fallen. That’s probably how Michael Wood sees it. Possibly not the fallen bit. If there’s one thing this gang of hopeless government ministers are good at it’s sheer arrogance. They appear to think they’re above the law. It would seem very few have read the Cabinet Manual. Here’s why: they are a lazy bunch. These people would no more read the Cabinet Manual than do proper research on the legislation they bring to the House.
They simply rely on their officials in the back offices to do the hard yards. People in the private sector who were on the level of remuneration ministers enjoy would be fired for nonperformance. It has been obvious for some time that those holding their warrants are simply not up to the task. The irony is that in the largest majority caucus in history, there are none any better than the next-to-useless incumbents.
The proof that this is a half-baked pudding of a government is the lack of good results. Part of this problem is that the results would be contra their ideology. For example, there’s no point in sending people to prison when you’re publicly saying the policy is to reduce the prison population.
There’s no point in trying to find out who the father of the solo mother’s sixth child is when the minister responsible states publicly it’s none of the government’s business. There’s no point in trying to stop retail crime if you give kids a slap with a wet bus ticket and let them out to ram raid again the next night (never mind getting them back to school). There’s no point in spending money on unused cycleways while cars are subjected to a plethora of potholes.
With regard to ministers, they are a pretty wretched lot. There’s not one stand-out amongst them.
Michael Wood failed to declare his Auckland airport shares, having been asked 12 times. He thought it was eight. Let’s hope he never gets to be Minister of Finance. As Minister of Transport, he made a ‘captain’s call’ against the North Shore aerodrome when they applied for full airport status. He was actually advised to do the opposite. The application should have flown and we would have had an airport north of the bridge.
Jan Tinetti has been caught out not correcting a lie she told in Question Time and has had a date with the Privileges Committee. She’s also been warned for not adhering to electoral law regarding campaigning. As Minister of Education and having been both a teacher and a principal you’d think she’d have a few clues.
Kiri Allan mouthed-off inappropriately at an RNZ function and managed to read the wrong speech in a parliamentary debate. How is it possible to do that? One can only assume a lack of comprehension.
Stuart Nash failed to read the Cabinet Manual and got caught ringing his ‘mate’ the Commissioner of Police. Just one of his misdemeanours. Another was as Minister of Forestry ‘not being able to see the wood for the trees’ and running foul of his ministerial responsibility.
Ginny Andersen thinks our mental capacities are on a par with hers by telling us crime is going down and we are all feeling safer when the opposite is the case. Sitting at a desk in Police HQ obviously doesn’t qualify you to be Minister of the organisation. Smart answers in Question Time are akin to juvenile behaviour.
Megan Woods has proved herself so inadequate that she has taken to gutter politics and in doing so misrepresented a National policy plank. This sort of politicking is perfectly acceptable to the left, as evidenced by Mike Munro’s opinion piece in the Weekend Herald.
These people resemble a high-scoring golfer, not up to par, and a long way from a hole-in-one. They are in a hole, a political one of their own making, and should be marched out of government on October 14 to the tune of Colonel Bogey.