Mike Hosking: Clare Curran saga shows PM Jacinda Ardern lacks backbone

COMMENT: I assume no one is missing the irony that poor old Clare Curran could see what needed to be done, but her boss once again couldn't.

And because of that it raises once again the question as to just what, in Ardern's mind, you have to do to get sacked.

She, of course, claims Curran had already been sacked as a Cabinet minister. But we know differently.

Ardern seems to be keen to play with words, Curran was already gone on Friday when she was busy on this radio station giving no indication whatsoever that that was the case.

Oh there was an excuse, some rationale about family members and party officials being told.

But that's the stuff that looks manipulative and dodgy. It's the stuff that's never quite as clean and clear as it needs to be.

Now, in her mind Ardern might well still be sitting there this morning having convinced herself she is right, and we are all wrong. And that some sort of touchy-feely approach to discipline is the modern way.

But it doesn't add up. You can't, on one hand, stand there talking about the high standards you expect of your ministers, while on the other hand defending a serial offender and refusing to sack them and offering up excuses about having a bad day at the office.

The two don't gel.

So at least Curran has done the right thing, but in doing so has highlighted how Ardern didn't.

And that's before we get to Meka Whaitiri. If it's true what Stuart Nash told us last Wednesday that she denies it, it's a "she said, she said" sort of affair. And that is a mess that doesn't easily get resolved.

And goes further to highlight that, one, it's the Labour Party that is letting the coalition down. And Ardern's other excuse that "this is government" and "it's what happens in government" equally doesn't wash, given her partners seemingly have nothing like the same trouble Labour has.

And two, both of those in trouble are women in a Cabinet Ardern was desperate to make 50/50 gender-wise and has already fallen short, before she losses potentially two of them.

And three, this increasingly looks like a party that had no expectation of government, has put all hands to the pump, and too many of those hands don't know what they're doing.

And that is before you get to Winston Peters, who increasingly looks like an experienced settled, if not, ever so slightly Machiavellian sort of operator. He's increasingly offering policy influence and direction for the Government without seemingly keeping the Prime Minister in the loop.

And all of this was put in to spectacular context on Friday with Curran's emotional resignation, he talked of her time in Cabinet, the achievements, the areas she worked on.

All of which would have been fine if it encompassed five or six years of service, but in reality it's not even one.

These guys have just arrived last week, and look how loose the wheels are already.