Speaking at a National party regional conference, Ngaro bragged that he would threaten social service providers with funding cuts if they criticised the National Government, according to Newsroom.
He singled out the Salvation Army policy unit and Manukau Urban Maori Authority, run by Labour list candidate Willie Jackson.
If his threats had ever eventuated into reality, they would represent an intolerable abuse of power which would warrant instant dismissal.
If the House were sitting this week, Ngaro would have been pummelled day after day in question time.
He will keep until next Tuesday when the House resumes but by then the sting may have gone out of the story.
The biggest reason English has been so forgiving of Ngaro is that he does not believe the junior minister would have followed through on his threat - and there is no evidence of it.
In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite. The last I heard the Salvation Army, it was on RNZ putting the boot into the Government's housing policy and praising Labour's.
English himself has had close engagement with social service sector.
He was known to be a minister who was and is open to new ideas and criticism and looking at new ways of doing things.
Ngaro has not yet had the opportunity to walk the way he talked. As a new minister, and Associate Minister for Social Housing, his work and decisions are closely watched by Social Housing Minister Amy Adams.
He would not get away with it.
Ngaro's comments smack of an inexperienced minister trying to sound as though he was an experienced political operator by talking tough.
He showed the complete opposite.
