Jobs for the boys, and nearly everyone else too

By JOHN ARMSTRONG

Winston Peters had a toxic verdict after viewing Helen Clark's ballooning ministry: "Trotters in the trough".

The number of Labour ministers outside the Cabinet has doubled from three to six. Likewise Labour's parliamentary under-secretaries, who now number two instead of one.

Yesterday's ministerial reshuffle means fatter salaries, more limousines and more taxpayer-funded perks. On top of that (or underneath, to be exact) is a new layer of "apprentice ministers" called parliamentary private secretaries.

They enjoy nothing extra in remuneration bar the prestige. But it all adds up to 30 of Labour's 52 MPs benefiting from the Prime Minister's patronage. Add in two whips, Speaker, Deputy Speaker and Assistant Speaker, and 35 Labour MPs have been rewarded with jobs or titles.

For all her pre-1999 election promises of frugality, Helen Clark, like all Prime Ministers, has sacrificed virtue for necessity. Despite the tough exterior, she has always avoided sweeping reshuffles, aware that is the fastest way to make enemies of colleagues.

She does not like sacking people on performance grounds - or even demoting them. Although Marian Hobbs has lost her prized Broadcasting portfolio, her Cabinet ranking is unchanged.

There is only one alteration to the pecking order: Michael Cullen swaps places with Jim Anderton now he is Deputy Prime Minister.

Helen Clark's salving of fragile egos was made more difficult this time by the absence of anyone retiring from the Cabinet, as would normally be the case.

Even the three vacant slots courtesy of the departed Alliance were not enough to quench the pent-up ambitions of those tapping their fingers in her caucus in expectation of a job, deserving or not.

To bring forward some quality, she has had to bring forward quantity. So the likes of long-serving Harry Duynhoven get a job so future Cabinet material such as David Cunliffe can be given a role.

Helen Clark also has to take account of factional realities, especially Labour's Maori wing. She could offer her Maori MPs only one slot inside the 20-strong Cabinet alongside Parekura Horomia, but more outside. Six of the seven Maori constituency MPs have jobs, and the seventh will chair the Maori affairs select committee.

All this patronage may not look pretty, but it is a sensible precaution.

Those with jobs outside the Cabinet are still expected to toe the Cabinet line. That gives the Prime Minister a guaranteed majority in the Labour caucus.

Her backbenchers are outnumbered.

That may be crucial in quelling backbench revolts, which tend to manifest themselves during a Government's far- trickier second term in office.

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