In view of the somewhat nebulous and inexplicit nature of your remit, and the arguably marginal and peripheral nature of your influence within the central deliberations and decisions within the political process, there could be a case for restructuring their action priorities in such a way as to eliminate your liquidation from their immediate agenda.

It’s appropriate to quote Sir Humphrey Appleby, given that this blog started as “Sir Humphrey’s”, that his image still appears in the logo, and the regrettable story that must be covered by this blog.

I say regrettable because I really didn’t want to cover the story, given that I focus on America and most aspects of NZ politics bore me given the tweedle-dee-tweedle-dum nature of it. Moreover this is yet another insight into our somewhat hapless Prime Minister. But a friend asked me to do it and nobody else at NM had covered yet, so….

The relatively minor story is that a National Cabinet Minister, one Andrew Bayly, has resigned after complaints from one of his staff about his behaviour, the details of which you can read about at Kiwiblog.

Incredibly the somewhat bigger story is how the Prime Minister dealt not with this situation but with a bog-standard media question about it from radio talk show host, Mike Hosking. The key part of the transcription is below (I have not listened to it because that’s something else I try to avoid with politicians: watching or listening to them).

Hosking: Would you – because you’ve got yourself into the usual trouble with you being too nice – would you have sacked him if he hadn’t offered to resign?

Luxon: Well, [that’s] hypothetical, he did resign.

Hosking: No, I know that, but just answer the question. Would you have sacked him?

Luxon: Well, he didn’t meet the expectations of a minister.

Hosking: So was it a sackable offence?

Luxon: Well, I think given how clear we’ve been on the first instance…

Hosking: Why can’t you just answer the question? This is why you get yourself reputationally in so much trouble. Would you have sacked him? Yes or no?

Luxon: I could say he didn’t meet the expectations I have of ministers.

Hosking: So you would have sacked him.

Luxon: I didn’t need to, because he resigned.

Hosking: See what you’re doing here?

Luxon: Well, you’re talking about a specific case, right, which is, have I done a good job of laying down expectations of my ministers? Yes. Crystal clear.

Hosking: The next step is really simple: ‘I’m glad he offered to resign because I tell you what, if he didn’t, I would have sacked him.’

Luxon: He wouldn’t have met my expectations as a minister.

Hosking: Why are you saying it that way? I don’t understand.

Luxon: Well, that’s what I mean. If he hadn’t resigned, I would have made an intervention.

Hosking: Why is this so bloody hard? ‘I would have sacked him.’

Luxon: No, no, but there’s an issue here …

Hosking: What is it?

Luxon: The issue is that most importantly, the standards are really clear of my ministers. They know the standards I operate within. Whenever we have any personnel issues, I think we’ve acted incredibly decisively but what I’d say in this case is I laid down, after the last instance, crystal-clear expectations, he reassured me there wouldn’t be another incident. He knew there was an incident. He then actually made that decision himself. It didn’t meet my expectations, it didn’t meet his.

Hosking: Count how many words you’re using to explain this. This is why you’re in trouble in the polls. People want something decisive. And look, if you wouldn’t have sacked him, say so. Either way, I don’t care, but people want from you, the Prime Minister, to go, ‘This is my expectation; I’m glad he resigned because if he didn’t, I would have sacked him.’

Luxon: Well, that’s exactly what has happened here though, isn’t it? I mean, he has resigned, and I’ve said to him, he hasn’t met his own expectations, which is important, right? I want ministers to understand. I saw examples …

Hosking: He came to his own conclusion, fantastic, good on him for doing that. But are you the sort of person that would have sacked him if he had not come to that conclusion?

Luxon: I think you’ve seen me act very decisively on personnel issues. That’s something I’ve done all my life, you know. It’s critical.

Hosking: No, that still doesn’t answer that. I don’t want to get bogged down on this. Why can’t you be decisive enough to simply say ‘I would have sacked him’, or not?

Luxon: In this case, he resigned. If that hadn’t happened, I would have been involved with that and would have made a decision to say he didn’t meet my expectations.

Hosking: Which would have led to what?

Luxon: It would have led to him losing the role anyway.

Hosking: So he would have been …?

Luxon: He would have been demoted.

Hosking: Demoted?

Luxon: The ministry would have been taken away.

Hosking: Right, sacked.

Luxon: Yeah, you can call it sacked.

Hosking: You’ve made a complete meal of this.

===============

My term for it would be “pigs breakfast”.

Dear God but that is painful to read. It doesn’t even fit within Sir Humphrey’s world where he once justified his verbose answers by saying that:

Clarification is not to clarify things. It is to put one’s self in the clear

Except Luxon was in the clear! Nobody is blaming him for Bayly because this sort of thing happens all the time with Ministers of every Party. The issue was resolved quickly and the initial assumption was that pressure was placed on Bayly behind the scenes, possibly by the PM himself or his staff or other Ministers, perhaps orchestrated by the PM if he didn’t want to do it himself.

Hence Hosking’s simple question, which has a simple answer that can then be discussed further if the answer was “No”, and probably ended if the answer was “Yes”.

But Luxon just couldn’t do that and thus showed not just a worrying inability to think and talk like an ordinary person but that he’s so heavily programmed to think and talk in Corporate Waffle that he can’t change. Even worse he may think he’s doing okay. After all, he won an election, negotiated a coalition government with not one but two partners and is now Prime Minister. So what’s the problem with referring to voters as “customers”, as he recently did?

Hosking, who is centre-right and thus likely voted for Luxon and National, spoke for many as he grew increasingly frustrated:

  • Why can’t you just answer the question?
  • See what you’re doing here?
  • Why are you saying it that way?
  • Why is this so bloody hard?

It would be easy to say that Luxon doesn’t have the natural media skills of Winston Peters or David Seymour – or more tellingly, John Key. But Winston has decades of experience and both Seymour and Key could be clumsy at the start of their political careers.

In other words Luxon could learn, he could be taught, even if he felt he was somewhat faking it.

The question is whether he wants to? Given how much time has passed since he became an MP and then National leader and now PM, I think that question has a simple answer:

No.