For nearly two years now, something that hasn't stopped dogging the Prime Minister is the perception that she's too soft. Can't make tough calls. Doesn't want to upset anyone.
It's not a great tag for a Prime Minister. Strength is valuable. Voters want to trust that their leader hasthe mettle to make the hard calls when they're needed.
This is more of a problem for Jacinda Ardern than it was for her predecessors Helen Clark and John Key. Both were older. Both had more life experience. She, on the other hand, is both young and a woman. It's a bit of an unfair disadvantage.
But, Ardern is doing nothing to help herself. When tough decisions present themselves, she almost always fails to rise to the challenge. She should've sacked Clare Curran. She should've demanded a head when Labour HQ kept the summer camp sex scandal a secret from her.
Whether the perception is fair or unfair really doesn't matter. Because perception is reality. So, in politics, you accept it and deal to it. Come out stronger than expected. Be more brutal than warranted. And put the problem to bed once and for all.
Yet, nearly two years into this government. Ardern keeps missing her chances. She missed another one this week.
She should've scalped Phil Twyford. His handling of the Housing portfolio has clearly disappointed Ardern. So she took it off him. But then she soothed his broken ego with a pacifier. She gave him Economic Development. That's a massive portfolio, and not one that should be given to a guy who can't run Housing. She let him keep Transport, which he's also stuffing up. She let him stay in the new team of housing ministers with his Urban Development portfolio. And she let him keep his Cabinet ranking. This guy, who apparently stuffed up Housing so badly it had to be taken off him, is still in Ardern's top five ministers. Unreal.
Jacinda Ardern and Phil Twyford. Photo / Peter Meecham
And then there's Iain Lees-Galloway. He's responsibly for the biggest splashing of egg on the Government's face last year with the Sroubek debacle. And yet he kept Immigration.
Presumably, that's because there just aren't enough promising, experienced Labour MPs who could do better. Labour spent its Opposition years fighting with itself rather than recruiting new blood.
Other than that, Ardern's Cabinet reshuffle was so predictable it could've been written weeks ago. She finally gave forgave Kris Faafoi for being a man and gave him the promotion into Cabinet he deserves. And she also replaced one woman with another woman. Meka Whaitiri's gap has been filled with Poto Williams. That should make the PM feel a bit better about inching towards her self-imposed gender balance in Cabinet.
Presumably, that's because there just aren't enough promising, experienced Labour MPs who could do better. Labour spent its Opposition years fighting with itself rather than recruiting new blood.
You can't help but get the feeling that Ardern and her office realise this reshuffle was a lacklustre affair. They did everything they could to avoid talking about it.
The announcement was made late in the afternoon of the last day in the week before MPs left Parliament for three weeks' leave. Ardern wasn't doing interviews. Twyford wasn't doing interviews. New Housing Minister Megan Woods wasn't doing interviews.
It's almost as if Ardern didn't want to have to answer questions about why Twyford wasn't totally fired. Or how she and her team are actually going to solve the housing crisis given they've only made it worse over the past two years. Or why she's keeping that ridiculous gender balance rule. Or why she doesn't have enough promising, experienced women to satisfy that rule. Or why she doesn't have enough promising, experienced MPs anywhere in her team.
Or whether she actually has the mettle for tough calls yet.
