I doubt if Jacinda Ardern has lost any voter support over the last week and a bit, but she has been challenged by a number of issues inflicted by others, and her attempt to stem the slide in business confidence has had a mixed reaction.
Stuff’s From the Beltway gives Ardern a pass mark.
Ardern – after fumbling Clare Curran’s demotion Ardern acted decisively in the face of allegations that Customs Minister Meka Whaitiri had a physical altercation with a staff member. Ardern also got kudos for her response to business confidence – promising business her ear through the establishment of a Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council.
The Curran demotion from Cabinet is widely seen as an interim step, with expectations that she will be eventually dropped as a Minister altogether, whether or not she stuffs up again.
The alleged Whaitiri incident can only be an interim step, standing her down from her ministerial responsibilities and setting up an investigation into what is being widely alleged as a physical altercation with a staff member.
Tracey Watkins in Jacinda Ardern’s first term hex:
Ardern’s hand is now stayed till the investigation into Customs Minister Meka Whaitiri is complete. The allegations are clearly so serious, and so significant, she had no choice but to stand the minister aside.
The allegations include shouting and a physical confrontation which, if proven, could be damaging enough to force Whaitiri out of Parliament altogether.
There should be zero tolerance of ministers using standover tactics on staff, and particularly getting physical.
Yet these allegations appear to have come as no surprise to most Beehive watchers.
So Ardern should have been made aware that one of her ministers could be an embarrassment waiting to happen.
But allegations relating to Whaitiri’s relations with her staff date back even to Opposition days – and that should raise some serious questions not just for Ardern, but parliamentary and ministerial service bosses.
First for Ardern – how could the Labour hierarchy not know about Whaitiri’s reputation among parliamentary staff?
It doesn’t look like a problem solved, just a problem put on hold for a while.
There has been an impression that while Ardern has generally been doing ok at her own job her Government has been lacking leadership, with Ministers left to do their own thing.
And also only partly dealt with, after being sent to an inquiry five months ago, is the youth summer camp embarrassment.
From the Beltway:
DOWN
Labour Party president Nigel Haworth – he is refusing to release the full report into Labour’s summer camp sex scandal and six months down the track the party is still only “reviewing” policies to prevent a recurrence.
There has been a lack of holding anyone in Labour to account. Neil Kirton slipped away from his job, as the report was delayed. The recommendations made public are an attempt to prevent future problems, and fail to address the camp issues (apart from the ongoing prosecution which was out of Labour’s hands after being forced by publicity).
Tracey Watkins:
Ardern doesn’t need to follow natural justice principles when it comes to her ministers – just as they are not required to follow the usual natural justice rules when it comes to hiring and firing their own staff.
Ardern’s only concern is whether she is being forced to burn some of her precious political capital on ministers who aren’t worth it.
That’s what former prime minister Helen Clark was referring to when she pointed out that heads would have rolled had the Labour summer camp scandal happened under her watch.
Clark would not have wasted her time defending the indefensible.
Ardern is going to have to learn that being ruthless is a necessary part of the role. Otherwise she won’t have any political capital left to burn on the fights worth having.
Ardern became involved in what should have been an issue between the Speaker and National.
RNZ Week In Politics: Could it get any worse for Labour?
Speaker Trevor Mallard’s decision to call off the inquiry set up to find the culprit has created a controversy that isn’t going to be easily resolved.
Police know who it is but won’t tell Mr Bridges. Mr Mallard apparently doesn’t know either but pulled the plug on the inquiry after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was an internal National Party matter.
Mallard controversially spoke to Ardern before scrapping the inquiry, a day after appointing a QC to run it.
Another contentious issue was the timing of Mr Mallard’s announcement that the inquiry wouldn’t take place. This came just before the release of Ms Ardern’s statement that she had sacked Clare Curran from cabinet.
The suspicion was that an attempt had been made to bury the inquiry story by swamping it with a bigger one.
Media tend to show their annoyance if their weekends are disrupted by later Friday news dumps.
This cluster of problems reflect on the management of Government. Demoting or sacking ministers can be politically embarrassing, but are storms that can usually be weathered.
But one issue has wider and bigger implications – business confidence (especially a lack of) can impact on the economy, and if that falters that can reflect badly on Labour’s financial management credibility.
Ardern tried to address it in a long planned speech, but a like warm response from her wordy and vague pep talk that attempted to address sliding business confidence.
While this was rumbling on, Ms Ardern decided to deal with a problem of her own – falling business confidence which the Opposition has been using to condemn the government’s economic management.
Ms Ardern’s creation of a Business Advisory Council, chaired by Air NZ chief executive Christopher Luxon to provide “high-level free and frank advice”, had a lukewarm reception at best.
The PM wants the government to have a stronger grip on the way it engages with the business sector, but she’s dealing with people who believe they already know what’s going on.
It’s going to be hard to persuade them that ministers in a Labour-led government know as much about business as predecessors such as Steven Joyce and Sir John Key.
Setting up an advisory council is a virtual admission that Ardern didn’t have the business knowledge and contacts deemed necessary for a Prime Minister.
Just as it seemed a bad week couldn’t get worse, another ANZ Business Outlook Survey was released showing confidence had fallen another five points.
The bank’s economist, Sharon Zollner, said that indicated “a threat to near-term activity”.
And it didn’t help that NZ First minister Shane Jones resumed attacks on the person Ardern appointed to lead her advisory council.
NZ First also created some awkward contradictions for their own stances on championing the regions and attacking Australian owned banks and business interests when Winston Peters released a racing report written by an Australian businessman that proposed shutting down many regional race tracks, and taking rrace betting of the TAB and giving it to Australian businesses.
Ardern has survived the week, but many of the challenges that arose remain as problems that will eventually need to be dealt with better.
Particularly with Simon Bridges flailing around over with the expenses leak Ardern’s voter approval will have barely been dented, but her ability to manage her Government and especially her Government’s ability to manage financial matters, will need to improve or she may struggle to hold her coalition together.
A popular Prime Minister with an unpopular Government will find re-election another major challenge in two years time.
