He got the Corrections job just in time for the "fight club" explosion at Serco-run Mt Eden Jail.
He had no say in how this misbegotten sequence of events came about, but had to cop the fall out and subsequent demotion.
Tukituki MP Craig Foss also changed his mind and will retire from Parliament at the next general election next year.
One of Craig Foss's delegations as Associate Transport Minister was drivers' licences and in that capacity, the Howard League sought his assistance.
Lack of a driver's licence, as I have written in these pages before, is a route to unemployment, benefit dependency and, too often, a jail term for far too many young (often Maori) people.
We found Craig Foss to be right on top of this issue and overseeing some valuable policy development in this area.
I sincerely hope that this work does not fall by the wayside with Mr Foss's departure.
Both Sam Lotu-Iiga and Craig Foss's electorates have been held by Labour in recent times and both have already have Labour candidates.
Tukituki will be an electorate to watch on election night 2017.
In days gone by the old seat of Hastings was recognised as the "bellwether" seat and almost always held by the governing party.
I well remember the 1978 General Election when I managed David Butcher's campaign for the seat.
Early on election night the seat switched to Labour causing short lived excitement in the Labour camp, but sadly on this occasion Muldoon's National Party squeaked home with fewer votes than Labour, but more seats.
The MMP seat of Tukituki is a third bigger than the old Hastings seat, and will be marginal next year.
Craig Foss's departure will improve Labour candidate Anne Lorck's prospects of winning the seat, just as Chris Tremain's departure from the Napier seat in 2014 assisted Stuart Nash's much deserved win in that year.
Virtually any established MP develops a personal following over time and people I talked to in Hawke's Bay generally held Foss in high regard.
That advantage to National has now gone.
Anna Lorck, who heavily reduced Foss's majority in 2014, has a very good chance of winning the seat next year.
She has worked doggedly to build up the local Labour Party and made good use of her undoubted business and communication skills to front issues important to the Tukituki electorate, especially around water issues which she was on to before the recent contamination scandal in Havelock North.
She can take some credit for the regional council's recent decision to take back ownership of the allocation of water for bottling, and over the education crisis which faced Havelock North
It will be fascinating to see just who Bill English promotes and dumps in forming his new Ministry.
With four Ministry slots open (including that of Education Minister Hekia Parata) English probably has enough leeway to assuage some backbench ambitions but an early measure of the man will be what he does with his old mate, Nick Smith.
Since his return from a period on the naughty stool, Smith has been a disaster in both his housing and environment portfolios.
His answer to the Auckland housing crisis was to visit the city and claim that he'd found 500 hectares of crown land on which houses could be built.
Dr Smith was either put crook by a malicious official or didn't do his homework as this "available" land was later shown by Labour housing shadow, Phil Twyford to include Government House in Mt Eden (The Governor General's Auckland residence), the Mangere Lawn Cemetery and two electricity sub-stations.
He then exposed the former PM to international derision when he allowed the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary to be declared without clearing all of the legal hurdles.
This is a great idea but like so many of Nick Smith's initiatives, half baked.
A tough early call for English, watch this space!
