KEY POINTS:
The only things missing were the cowboy boots, a ten-gallon hat and the sheriff's badge. Otherwise, David Cunliffe's performance in Parliament yesterday was as hammy as a slow-talking, quick-shooting gunslinger in a cheap spaghetti western.
Clearly modelling himself as some latter-day Clint Eastwood-type character - but without the
required degree of silent menace to make him really threatening - Mr Cunliffe came to the House with one intention and one intention only: to show who's boss in the health portfolio following last week's Cabinet reshuffle.
Interrupted by his Opposition counterpart while being questioned on the woes of Wellington's Capital and Coast District Health Board, Mr Cunliffe imperiously intoned: "Mr Ryall, why don't you stay in your box. I'm running this show."
And "show" it was. Not one which would win Mr Cunliffe an Oscar or an Emmy. But entertaining, nevertheless. At least for Opposition MPs, who could hardly believe the minister's swagger as he leant on his bench and eyeballed them like a town marshall daring a bunch of desperadoes to try to outdraw him.
He was clearly out to show he meant business. With the help of a patsy question from a colleague, he revealed his first "external" action as Health Minister had been to haul the district health board's chairman and chief executive into his office following the closure of child cancer treatment services in Wellington.
They had told him the board would report by the end of the month recommending solutions.
"I expect that to be done," he said, enunciating each word slowly to leave the impression there would be trouble if it wasn't.
However, his rounding on Tony Ryall backfired somewhat. In declaring he was the one now "running the show", Mr Cunliffe has given National a stick with which to beat him when it comes to taking responsibility for things going wrong.
Spotting Annette King and Pete Hodgson seated together in the health ministers' "graveyard", Mr Ryall wondered who had been running the show for the last eight years and who should therefore accept accountability for the dysfunction, mistrust and rock-bottom morale at Capital and Coast Health.
"Very clearly, primary accountability rests with the district health board," began Mr Cunliffe, ducking the bullet and provoking even more guffaws from Opposition benches.
"And it would be inappropriate to reach over each layer of governance until the appropriate work has been done," he continued."
However, rather than reaching over, Mr Cunliffe seemed to be over-reaching himself in trying to appear tough and decisive.