Fran O'Sullivan: Calm and rational versus meltdowns

Cabinet Ministers en garde: There's no room for "phone throwers" or "temper tantrums at the top" in John Key's eyes.

"When the chips are down, if the person you're relying on is having a meltdown, they'll probably make the wrong decision," he said at the launch of the Sir Peter Blake Trust leadership awards this week.

The Prime Minister has already given his colleagues the message not to "come and yell at him" over political outcomes. Not everything will go their way: But they should work their way through issues in a calm and rational manner.

It's easy to deduce what sparked Key's warning. It's early days, but already two of his Cabinet ministers are showing signs of "phone-throwing" tendencies.

Fifth-ranked Cabinet minister Nick Smith has a volatile disposition. Smith kept himself in check reasonably successfully while in Opposition making up for his initial meltdown after Bill English was ousted as National's leader.

Some of the programmes he has under way, such as plans for an Environmental Protection Agency, display the visionary capacity that Key rated as one of the top leadership attributes in his Thursday address. He is a passionate and intense politician.

But Smith's stand-over tactics when dealing with the ACC board and management would surely rate a private dressing down given Key's emphasis on "calm and rationality". At issue is why Smith gatecrashed the parliamentary select committee undertaking its routine financial review of ACC.

A bizarre rush of blood to the head prompted him to break every governance rule in the book by substituting himself for ACC's chairman, then sitting alongside the hapless ACC chief executive Jan White while she answered the committee's questions over the corporation's activities.

Smith has made serious charges over ACC's handling of its financial responsibilities. White deserved to be questioned on just how she discharged her duties last year free of any intimidation by her minister - either overt or unintended.

Smith claimed his presence was necessary because John Judge - who he has appointed to replace former chairman Ross Wilson - couldn't be there. But the usual practice would be to substitute ACC's deputy chairman Peter Neilson.

The unpalatable truth is that Smith did not want Neilson (who could well also be marked for the sack with other board members) to be asked questions that might elicit responses that challenge the Cabinet minister's scare-mongering over the state of the corporation's books.

Key is unlikely to dump on Smith in public. But at Monday's Cabinet meeting he warned colleagues to be judicious in how they represent financial issues.

The warning is apposite. There is a fine line between leveraging the impact of the international recession on the financial health of the Government's own assets to create what in management speak is often referred to as a "burning deck" to force radical change, and downright chicanery.

Take the financial stimulus. When talking to the Asian Wall St Journal's Mary Kissel, Key paints a picture which makes him the odd man out among international leaders. He is intent on major reform, cutting taxes, removing red tape and so forth.

But internally, he sells the message that his Government is presiding over a fiscal stimulus which is the sixth-largest in the world.

Frankly, Kissel's report missed the fact that Key's Government is also adding to Crown debt at a rate of knots to fund the upcoming tax cuts. But the issue is one of perception. Key's ministers do not need to over-egg things.

Most Kiwis are tuned into what's happening on the international stage and will accept the rationale Key trotted out for Kissel, if he runs a similar line at his own conferences with domestic reporters.

Things like "phone-throwing" is not an attribute directly associated with Judith Collins. But bullying is.

Collins' decision to initially ban Corrections head Barry Matthews from defending his department's performance in the wake of an Audit Office report that found an alarming performance in handling parole issues was knee-jerk. It was also stupid as Collins has not managed to drum Matthews from his job, but has more likely paved the way for a substantial payout on his terms.

But exuding a zen-like state of calm has not always been a disqualifier for a successful career in politics. Former National Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon resorted to fisticuffs when bailed up outside his car by protesters.

Jim Bolger threw a pen at his opponents across the floor of Parliament.

So what rattles Key? The only example he could admit to was the state of 15-year-old daughter Steffie's ensuite - which he joked to a breakfast audience this week was "a health hazard" ... "should have a number of government agencies looking at it". Thanks Dad.