Barry Soper: Jacinda Ardern would have wanted a better first week back

COMMENT: Jacinda Ardern would have wanted a better first week back at work.

If you wanted a gauge on how bad it's been for her you only had to listen to how she repeatedly used the word 'fustrated'.

Yep there was no R in it, fustrated was repeated again and again.

She was talking about the latest allegations surrounding Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha which completely dominated her "significant" mental health announcement.

This mega mess is enough to give anyone a nervous breakdown, now it's being alleged Haumaha's bullying drove three women from Police HQ who were working on better justice outcomes for Maori.

They said they felt devalued and disillusioned by Haumaha who they claim belittled their efforts publicly on several occasions.

Even though the cops say they take bullying very seriously it seems little was done about it in this case.

Ardern was fustrated on many fronts, not the least that it was diverting attention away from other issues that she felt were much more important.

Perhaps if she'd done what she said she'd be doing within days at the beginning of the week and get someone to handle the infernal inquiry into Haumaha's appointment process she wouldn't have been so fustrated.

Oh and in case you're fustrated at the misspelt word, perhaps the Urban dictionary has the answer, which in Ardern's case is completely understandable.

It says having such a high level of frustration means the user of the word simply forgets to include the R which indicates the level of fustration when they're trying to describe their feelings to their peers.

For her this week it's been about as overused as the word "significant."

That was applied to the fluff that was the Trade for All announcement at the beginning of the week and touted by Ardern before she came back to work.

If was little more than crowd sourcing trade deals that a Government is duty bound to make on our behalf whether we like it or not.

They've done what they've become expert at doing, appointing a chairman of a board to oversee it without the board.

And then there was the "significant" announcement of Mana in Mahi which was actually announced by the former Labour leader Andrew Little in 2016.

It pays employers the equivalent of the dole to take on those who've been on the benefit for six months or more. It's initially limited to 150 young people, hopefully growing to four thousand by midway through next year.

Then the final 'significant" policy the media was lured into attending was the $8.4 six mental health units, yes six, being set up for those with high and complex needs.

That fustrated the hell out of National who'd earmarked a hundred million for mental health saying the latest initiative wouldn't even register a drop in the bucket..