Mike Hosking: From aspiration to aspirin for Jacinda Ardern

I am sure it was one of those throw away witticisms, but the Prime Minister on my show on Tuesday in trying but failing to answer questions about New Zealand First MP Jenny Marcroft, defended her lack of knowledge or actions by suggesting she had enough trouble keeping her own lot in line, far less that of other parties.

Not an unfair point, but missing perhaps the irony that her last major problem had been a bloke called Jones, who was in fact from the same party as Marcroft.

But more on that shortly.

I wondered at the time if she might be referring that morning to the story that, as yet, hadn't broken, over her Broadcasting Minister Clare Curran who has found herself in the midst of a scandal that's seen the resignation of Carol Hirschfeld, she of St John Alarms fame and Radio New Zealand.

Hirschfeld has all the time now to pursue the world of advertorials given she is toast at the public broadcaster.

But Curran has some serious questions to answer.

Why muddy the waters about meetings, and no matter what the answers turn out to be, this is yet another bad look for a government and a headache for the Prime Minister.

This Government looks loose, it looks ropey, and Ardern can try to distance herself as much as she likes by playing the technicality card of separate parties, but ultimately a coalition is a coalition and they sink or swim together.

The Shane Jones drama with Air New Zealand is slightly less damaging, to the extent that although telling people to "get back in their box" and calling for sackings, while a mile over the line, did in fact strike a chord with regional New Zealand. So it's entirely possible that Jones feels emboldened by it all, despite his telling off by Jacinda which, let's be honest, to call it pathetic would be to enhance its alleged effect.

Then we come to Marcroft, a woman Winston Peters would have us believe of her own volition simply got out of bed, rang Mark Mitchell, called a meeting, invented a minister she was representing, and then proceeded in said meeting to heavy him over the regional fund, as overseen by the aforementioned Jones.

Panicking, she texts Mitchell telling him to forget everything. That of course was her biggest mistake because in doing so she created a paper trail she can't hide from.

Peters issues a statement that says no minister was involved, so Jenny just did it all by herself.

Ask your 10 best friends if any of them believe that and come back to me if you find more than two.

Then of course there was the party, the youth conference where the scandal season this Government is enduring first started.

So in a couple of weeks, we have the youth camps and alleged sexual assault, a minister being reprimanded for bullying corporates, a backbench MP heavying an Opposition MP over a publicly funded regional development scheme worth billions which the Government swears is above board and beyond politics, and a minister immersed in dealings involving millions more going towards what most would describe as their favoured broadcaster.

To say this isn't a good look is to provide the sort of spin not even Winston could drum up with a straight face. This Government looks amateurish, disorganised, unprofessional and increasingly out of their depth.

The government that has more headlines around mess than policy is not a government that lasts long.

And once the rot sets in, it's nigh on impossible to shake — ask Malcolm Turnbull or Theresa May.

For a Government that started out with such a sparkling honeymoon, it has managed to put it so far in the distance you could almost call it the good old days. But we're only five months in, and if the wheels aren't coming off, they are loose, and it isn't even winter yet.