Carmel Sepoloni would have to be rated as one of Labour’s best performing ministers …. sarc. Under her watch at MSD the number of working people receiving a benefit have increased by over 22% since National left office; those on a benefit more than twelve months increased by 26%; Maori beneficiaries up by 26%; Pacific people (her people) by 35%: numbers on job seeker more than twelve months up 49%; Maori on job seeker up 41% and Pacific people on job seeker up 67% … source https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/index.html. And we won’t even talk about educational attainment
Some might see her appointment as a cynical attempt to shore up Labour’s PI support base given that by virtually every metric the statistics for PI people are going south at a rate of knots. I couldn’t possibly comment.
And consider this … good enough to be Deputy Prime Minister but not good enough to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party … such is the power of the Maori caucus. Got to keep the troops happy I guess. Turn that around … Kelvin Davis … good enough to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party but not good enough to be Deputy Prime Minister …. hmmmmmmm
No Minister 
Deputy was always going to be a “woman of colour” to satisfy Labour’s fetish for tokenistic box tick virtue signalling. However they could not have any of the Maori caucus (Allan or Mahuta) as Chippie needs to set about chopping down 3W and RNZ TVNZ merger both of which are key Maori caucus initiatives.
It did not take Klueless Kelvin long to prove he was not Deputy PM material. As I recall has first press conference (or was it his first Question Time) convinced everyone of that.
Will Sepuloni last longer – the whole country watches and waits.
But but but … clearly he’s good enough to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party … sez much.
Harsh to say Vet – but tokenism dictates both appointments.
That is the Labour Party these days.
Worth looking at Lindsay Mitchell’s post on Sepuloni as well.