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Home / Business

Richard Prebble: Shuffling the deck chairs but ministers responsible for worst problems likely to stay put

NZ Herald
26 Dec, 2022 10:29 PM4 mins to read

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Six Labour MPs announced they will step down at the next election: Aupito William Sio, Poto Williams, Jamie Strange, David Clark, Paul Eagle and Marja Lubeck.

Six Labour MPs announced they will step down at the next election: Aupito William Sio, Poto Williams, Jamie Strange, David Clark, Paul Eagle and Marja Lubeck.

Opinion

OPINION:

Trailing in the polls, Jacinda Ardern has announced six retirements. She announced that early in the New Year there will be a reshuffle to demonstrate “the excellent talent” in the Labour caucus.

The PM believes this election year reshuffle will revive Labour’s fortunes. It will not.

Who knows or cares who the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector is? I was part of an election year cabinet reshuffle. It was a total screw-up.

The Palmer government was slipping in the polls. Geoffrey, like Jacinda, asked ministers which ones were not standing again. Then he announced all the retiring ministers would be replaced to refresh the cabinet.

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The caucus was delighted. MPs realised this might be their only opportunity to be a minister. Backbenchers believe, often correctly, that they are more able. They also believe, wrongly, that if only they were ministers, things would be so much better.

Geoffrey Palmer asked me to rejoin the cabinet to my previous portfolios.

Palmer managed to upset everyone.

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I was not happy because I had wanted to retire from politics.

Ministers who had advised they were retiring were unhappy at being sacked. The ministers believed, often correctly, that they were more able than the backbenchers who replaced them.

The backbenchers who missed out being appointed were unhappy.

Geoffrey Palmer became Prime Minister in 1989. His former colleague Richard Prebble says a reshuffle soon after made many Labour MPs unhappy. Photo / Herald archive
Geoffrey Palmer became Prime Minister in 1989. His former colleague Richard Prebble says a reshuffle soon after made many Labour MPs unhappy. Photo / Herald archive

The new ministers were unhappy the PM had taken so long over the reshuffle. They had wanted to be appointed before Christmas so they had a chance to master their briefs before facing questions in Parliament.

Becoming a minister in election year is a suicidal appointment. Even though I was returning to my previous portfolios I felt I had landed in the guard’s van of a moving train.

It was weeks before I felt I was at the controls.

The new ministers were never at the controls. They did not have time to understand the issues, get to know their officials, meet all the stakeholders and then make policy changes. Most ministers say it takes three years to master a portfolio.

Ministers appointed in February of election year have just months before everything is suspended for the election. Not long enough to achieve anything.

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“Yes Minister” is not a comedy, it’s a tragedy. The civil service has its own agenda.

In election year civil servants can easily delay a project they do not like. The civil service has been known to take advantage of a green minister to advance their pet projects.

As Minister of Police I vetoed Police developing their own “world-leading” computer system.

“Bespoke computer systems always run over cost and often fail,” I said.

“There are over 100 Police departments in America bigger than the New Zealand Police force. There will be a tested police computer system in America that will do most of what you want for a fraction of the price.”

Police waited for a new minister who, being green, signed off the project. The computer system cost the taxpayer over $100 million before being abandoned as unworkable.

We not only had rookies in charge of departments making rookie mistakes but the quality of cabinet decision-making declined. We missed the wise counsel of ministers who had been sacked just because they were retiring. Ministers like the late Stan Rodger.

Some ministers not wanting to be sacked did not tell Palmer they were retiring. These ministers waited until the last moment to announce they were not standing - too late for a new candidate to campaign effectively.

Usually reliable sources say the Defence Minister Peeni Henare, who was not one of the six retirements announced by the PM, is not going to stand again.

Why would he? With a majority of just 927, he faces a tough re-election fight. There will be more retirements than those announced.

The Palmer cabinet reshuffle was not a game changer. Jacinda Ardern is closely following Geoffrey Palmer’s playbook to what will be a similar result.

Read More

  • Richard Prebble: ‘Lame duck’ Labour attacking National ...
  • Richard Prebble: What we learned from Hamilton West ...
  • Richard Prebble – Rolling with the punches...

This may sound contradictory but it is not. There is never a bad time to sack a poor minister.

The firing of Poto Williams who was struggling as Police minister is a case in point. What matters is not whether a minister is retiring but whether the minister is up to the job.

Here is the problem. Reshuffling the responsibilities of junior ministers like the Minister for the Community and Voluntary sector, who is Priyanca Radhakrishnan, will not change anything. She is not responsible for Labour’s low polling. She can’t be. She has done nothing.

Jacinda Ardern is not going to sack the senior ministers who are responsible for inflation, runaway government expenditure, rising crime and co-governance.

We the voters will have to do a real cabinet reshuffle by sacking them all.

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