In July 1962, following a slump in his government’s political fortunes, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan abruptly sacked one third of his Cabinet. Amongst the reactions to what became known as Britain’s “Night of the Long Knives” was the caustic comment of Liberal MP, Jeremy Thorpe, cleverly paraphrasing Dickens’ Sydney Carlton, that “greater love hath no man than he lay down his friends for his life.”  Macmillan was following the dictum laid out by Britain’s four-time, dominant nineteenth century Prime Minister, William Gladstone that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.”

Subsequently, many political leaders, including Macmillan himself reflecting in the early 1980s on that 1962 reshuffle, President Richard Nixon and even Margaret Thatcher, all lamented that, when the time came, they had not been good butchers. Reflecting on the last few months of his own Prime Ministership, and his handling of the Ministerial crises that have beset it, Chris Hipkins might by now have a similar view.

It is clear, with the benefit of a few months’ hindsight, that Hipkins inherited a seriously dysfunctional Cabinet. Performance failings had been glossed over or ignored, and only passing attention had been paid to established guidelines and procedures like the Cabinet Manual. When compliance proved too awkward or inconvenient, the established rules had simply been ignored as not relevant. The Cabinet’s primary function seemed to be sustaining the personal standing of the former Prime Minister who had delivered them such a stunning election victory in 2020.

Hipkins’ “new broom” swept aside several Ministers to make way for new talent, mainly departing Ministers who had said they wanted to leave at the election anyway. Since then, Hipkins has faced five separate Ministerial crises, leading to three Ministers being forced to resign, one censured by Parliament following a Privileges Committee inquiry, and one simply walking out altogether to join another party.

Hipkins’ handling of the three cases leading to Ministerial resignations has been consistent – and has failed on each occasion. He has treated each initial revelation about Ministerial conduct failures as an aberration that the Minister would correct given time, and to which he should not overreact. In each case he dismissed suggestions that further damaging revelations might come to light. But each time he has been let down by those Ministers as further lapses have been revealed and he has had to ask for their resignations. Nash and Wood were able to thumb their noses at the Prime Minister for several weeks longer than any Prime Minister made of sterner stuff would have tolerated.

However, the situation involving Kiri Allan is a little different, even if Hipkins’ handling of it has been just as woeful as the other cases. Unlike Nash and Wood, who thought they could get away with ignoring the rules around Cabinet confidentiality or disclosure of personal interests by virtue of who they were, Allan’s downfall is far more tragic. It has been precipitated by some very personal crises that Hipkins and those around him have been very slow to respond to. 

The warning signs first appeared with Allan’s now infamous remarks at the Radio New Zealand farewell for her former partner. Here was a case of a Minister struggling to understand the constraints being a Minister placed on her. Rather than dealing with the issue then, the official response was very casual, tossing aside the reaction to her remarks as exaggerated and unnecessary.

When the accusations about her treatment of staff and officials arose, the initial reaction was similar – these were “unsubstantiated” accusations and “no formal complaints have been laid”. Only belatedly, when more revelations seemed likely, did Hipkins suggest Allan take time off, to get over these accusations and the recent ending of her relationship. The problem was seen as primarily Allan’s, which time away from the job would help overcome.

Her demise came less than a week after she decided to resume her normal duties, prompting Hipkins’ response then that maybe she had returned to work too early, even though he understood she had had some counselling during her absence. Again, his response seemed far too casual.

Allan’s fall is an indictment of the lack of pastoral support the Parliamentary environment provides those within it. Too much is still left to chance. If the Prime Minister felt that Allan’s personal position was sufficiently fragile for her to take an extended period of leave to recover, the very least that he should have ensured was that before she returned to work, there was a standard medical certificate or similar confirming it was safe and that adequate support mechanisms were in place for her to take up her duties as a Minister once more. But no, all it took was Allan saying she was ready to return, and Hipkins accepting her assurance.

While it is easy and convenient for Hipkins to now say Allan’s behaviour earlier this week made her continuing to be a Minister “untenable”, he must accept a measure of real responsibility for what happened, and the consequent end of Allan’s political career. Although he undoubtedly and genuinely thought his softly, softly approach was both compassionate and in her best interests at the time, the awful truth is that downplaying her fragile state has led to the current, very sad situation.

But despite Hipkins’ lack of judgement in this instance, it is not altogether fair to blame him entirely for what has happened. Across society today there is an increasing general understanding and acceptance of the need to encourage good mental health standards in the workplace and to ensure people can get help when they need it. But that has not yet extended sufficiently to Parliament where there is still much to do to ensure good workplace standards and practices. Making Parliament the good and safe workplace that has been promised throughout this government’s term now needs to become a priority and not just a platitude.

Ensuring all future governments focus on this should be the enduring legacy from Kiri Allan’s short and troubled political career.

 

 

Opinion polls suggest that it is now likely that National will lead the next government, supported in some shape or form by ACT. When looking at the likely make-up of a such a government much of the focus so far has been on National and who the top team supporting Christopher Luxon could be. Little attention has yet been paid to ACT, what role it might play, and its key personnel.

But as Prime Minister Hipkins pointed out last week ACT is likely to be a substantial player in any future National-led government. Hipkins’ comment was highly partisan and primarily aimed at raising fears in voters’ minds at that prospect, but is relevant, nonetheless. ACT’s co-founder Sir Roger Douglas also weighed in this week saying that he no longer supports the party because it now represents only the wealthy and is not committed anymore to the radical tax reform and personal responsibility-based welfare reform that he had campaigned for.

Against that backdrop, Hipkins’ politically charged comment is nonetheless a fair one. What does ACT stand for, and what role will seek to play in a future government? And, as Hipkins questions and hopes, should voters be worried?

Douglas also has a point. Since its early principled days ACT has vacillated between a watered-down version of its original self, and right-wing populism, without the mad Trumpian tinge now the preserve of New Zealand First. ACT’s approach to tax reform is now purely about cutting taxes, rather than the integrated approach to tax and welfare reform that Douglas had sought from the time he was Minister of Finance in the fourth Labour government. On law and order, ACT’s approach is sheer middle American populism, from the reintroduction of the failed “Three Strikes” policy, through to dealing with teenage offenders in adult Courts. Then there is the call for a referendum on the role and place of the Treaty of Waitangi, as naked an appeal to the redneck vote, as ever there was one.

Yet for all that, ACT has never rated higher in public support than it does today. As ACT leader David Seymour observes, it is obviously doing something right. There was speculation after Luxon became National’s leader, that he would eat into ACT’s new support base, but this has not happened. If anything, ACT’s support has grown since then.

The upshot is that National’s only route to office at the coming election will be via ACT. That will not be without its challenges. On current polling, ACT MPs in the next Parliament could comprise up to a third of the governing bloc. ACT has stated its strong preference for a clean coalition with National, with an agreed government programme to pursue during the three-year term. However, if it cannot get agreement on that, ACT has said it will not hesitate to sit outside government on the crossbenches and force National into the cumbersome process of having to negotiate support for every issue, on a case-by-case basis. That would make governing extremely difficult and would almost certainly precipitate an early election.

For that reason, the comprehensive government coalition agreement ACT is seeking is unlikely to be as extreme as Hipkins and others suggest. ACT’s major focus is likely to be on regulatory reform, improving the overall processes of government decision-making, stronger accountability for public servants for policy delivery, and a removal of petty rules and restrictions across the board. With that focus established and recognised as ACT’s distinct bastion, the rest of a National/ACT government programme will probably have a more traditional National flavour to it, although getting ACT to compromise sufficiently will still be fraught with difficulty.

There would be likely up to 6 ACT Ministers sitting around the Cabinet table in a National/ACT Cabinet – just under a third of the total. That would be the biggest group of Ministers ever from a single support party in Cabinet and will create its own tensions. In that eventuality Luxon cannot afford to get into the game-playing that previous National and Labour Cabinets did when faced with a sizeable bloc of New Zealand First Ministers of trying to work around, rather than with, them on critical issues. ACT Ministers faced with such behaviour would be far more likely to walk away altogether to sit on the crossbenches. Luxon’s business executive skills will be helpful in managing this process, but they are unlikely to make up completely for his lack of political experience.

The question then arises as to which ACT MPs could become Ministers. Seymour’s easy response that all his MPs are capable is as predictable as it is banal. Aside from Seymour and his capable deputy Brooke van Velden, two other ACT MPs do stand out as likely Cabinet contenders, based on their performance over the last three years – Nicole McKee and Karen Chhour. But while ACT has worked in a very disciplined way in Opposition over the last three years, it could be a different story if they are in government where all their key leaders are likely to be distracted from day-to-day Caucus management because they are too busy as Ministers.

There is no doubting ACT’s Tigger-like commitment and enthusiasm. Seymour has been impressive over the last term of Parliament, shaping his team into an effective Parliamentary unit. As it stands on the verge of potentially its greatest political triumph to date, ACT will need all these attributes, and even more discipline and focus, if it is to succeed as a government partner.

More importantly, if it is to succeed in government, National needs to ensure the partnership with ACT works effectively. Otherwise, it could be looking for new friends in three years’ time.

 

The shocking situation revealed this week about the continuation of Dawn Raids on Pasifika and other alleged overstayers is as appalling as it is unsurprising.

It is appalling because as far as most people were concerned such raids stopped some time ago, and certainly should not have been continuing since the government’s formal apology in 2021.

It is unsurprising because it is one more example of this government’s failure to be able to manage policy change effectively. This had all the elements of the way this Labour government does such things, focusing on the appearance rather than reality. There was the carefully choreographed and highly emotional apology from the Prime Minister at the time, pushing all the right buttons with the carefully selected audience. But as with so many things, going back to the launch of Kiwibuild in 2018, there was no substantive follow-up, meaning that nothing really changed at all.

As the report of Michael Heron KC notes, the government assumed that following the apology Immigration New Zealand would get the message and cease Dawn Raids. For its part, in the absence of a formal directive to that effect from then Immigration Minister Michael Wood, Immigration New Zealand, somewhat obtusely, assumed that, following the theatre of the apology, it was still business as usual.

Wood’s apparent failure to properly advise Immigration New Zealand of the government’s expectations was another major failure of judgement on his part. Alongside the other errors of judgement he made regarding his personal interests disclosure, which led to his recent resignation from Cabinet, the immigration fiasco further dents his credibility as a competent Minister and a safe pair of hands. Twice now in the space of a few weeks, his inactions have caused the government major political embarrassment.

But Immigration New Zealand is far from blameless in this issue. Its wilful obduracy in ignoring the government’s apology – an extraordinarily myopic feat if ever there was one, given the publicity the apology received – and carrying on as before because it had received no specific Ministerial direction to do otherwise is unconscionable. It reinforces all the worst views about how bureaucracies behave when they think know better than their political masters. Those officials responsible for continuing to carry out Dawn Raids now need to be held accountable for their actions.

However, Immigration New Zealand’s stubbornness goes far beyond this issue and what they may or may not have thought about their Minister and the apology. During the thirty-three years I was an MP, immigration cases consistently topped by a considerable margin the list of issues that constituents came to see me about. Based on those experiences, I reached the conclusion that no matter what government was in power, Immigration New Zealand’s approach was always essentially racist. It was consistently more difficult to win cases for people from India, the Pacific, Asia, and Africa than it was for people from Europe, America, or South Africa.

Immigration New Zealand always seemed willing to help where it could people from “white” countries, whereas those from the “brown” countries were seen as potential overstayers (if they were seeking a short-term visa) or trying to beat the system through marriages of convenience, falsified qualifications, family reunification issues and the like. I dealt with many cases of people who had been through the most harrowing of circumstances and were seeking a new life in New Zealand, being dealt with in the most cavalier and dismissive way by Immigration New Zealand. These attitudes appeared ingrained, and it mattered not what government was in office, and whether it wanted to increase migration levels or reduce them. Immigration New Zealand just continued doing things the way it always had done.

That approach, which does not appear to have changed, explains, but certainly does not justify, why Immigration New Zealand has continued with selective Dawn Raids since the government’s 2021 apology. As one Pasifika community leader observed this week, Dawn Raids only seem to apply to people from the Pacific and Asia.

But, despite the clarity of the Heron report and its recommendations, and the government’s professed high dudgeon that Dawn Raids are continuing, the response has been prevarication. Both the Acting Prime Minister and the present Immigration Minister have decried Immigration New Zealand’s defiance of the 2021 apology but have stopped short of saying Dawn Raids should be made completely illegal.

Bluntly, they cannot have it both ways. They either endorse the principle of Dawn Raids, or they rule them out and legislate accordingly. The idea they can strike some middle ground which upholds Dawn Jacinda Ardern’s apology but gives room for Dawn Raids to continue in certain circumstances lacks credibility and smacks of the old “little bit pregnant” argument.

This whole saga is further evidence that as far as this government is concerned how things look and are presented is more important than what their actual impact might be. For them, it is far more important to empathise about a problem than to do something about it.

 

At risk families and young people currently get a raw deal in New Zealand. This is despite the fact we are devoting more resources and public spending than ever before to dealing with those considered to be "at risk."

Images this week of young people occupying the roof of a youth correction facility; more reports of improper conduct by staff in Oranga Tamariki facilities; more ram raids, and the ongoing political rhetoric about gangs strengthen the impression lawlessness is rife in New Zealand and that the government lacks any answers. In turn, these fuel public anxiety about personal safety and create fertile ground for Opposition politicians to till in the lead-up to the election.

Yet through the data already collected by the Police and other social agencies the families and young people who are well known to be at risk, and the nature of the social problems they face, are already clearly identifiable. Gathering this data and then using it to develop effective intervention services targeted specifically to those at risk was at the heart of former Prime Minister Sir Bill English's approach to social policy. But this government quickly eschewed that, dismissing it as far too specific, and stigmatising of those identified as at risk. It preferred instead a broader brush-based approach that did not, as it saw it, point the finger at those too specifically.

Unfortunately, today's National Party has also turned its back on English's nuanced policy in favour of a much more populist approach to law and order, with no evidence it will be any more effective than when tried by previous governments. Nevertheless, already backed into a corner by the ultra-hardline approach to law-and-order of its only viable potential partner ACT, National probably has no immediate practical alternative. National’s primary challenge right now is to shore up, then significantly grow its political support if it is to have any prospect of leading a government after October’s election. Its calculation is that, given mounting public concern about law-and-order issues, it cannot afford to be seen as soft or even reasonable on the issue, hence its hardline rhetoric of late.

While that approach is understandable in the context of the election, and may pay the desired dividend at the polls, it is foolish to think that it will be any more successful now than when it was attempted previously. It was the realisation of that that led English to once describe the prison system as “a moral and fiscal failure” – a point today’s National Party should not overlook.

Labour’s defence to claims it is soft on law-and-order and dealing with people at risk is to point to the significant increase in Police numbers during its term, and the various social assistance programmes it has introduced. It argues that rising lawlessness in the community has been brought on by deprivation and social inequality, long-term and deep-seated issues which it is committed to resolving. That sounds good and well-intentioned but is really an excuse for failing to act decisively.

Labour’s broad-based, point no fingers approach is just as ineffective and poorly directed as National’s hardline, reactive stance has proved previously. Neither is making an impact on dealing with families at risk, and both are wilfully missing the point in the interests of short-term political expediency. Society generally continues to suffer the consequences. This week’s report from the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser on dealing with the gangs also highlighted the failure of current policy approaches.

All of which reinforces the need for a targeted, data-based approach to those who are at risk. As indicated earlier, data already collected by the Police and other government makes it very clear who those at risk are. Additional data from external agencies, like the long-term Dunedin multidisciplinary study, provides information about when and how dysfunction starts to appear and the consequences of ignoring it.

Political parties like Labour, National and ACT like to claim that strong, specific actions like increasing Police numbers, or a tougher line on gangs show their boldness and strong commitment to upholding law-and-order and protecting community safety. But what they are promoting are at best symbolic and simplistic solutions that play to their own political audiences. They contribute little to resolving the wider social problem.

The lasting solution lies in adopting a targeted, data-based approach to identifying, then supporting, those who are disadvantaged and at risk, as promoted previously by English and suggested again in the Prime Minister’s chief science adviser’s report this week. However, this would require an act of political boldness, probably beyond the scope of most of our political parties at present. The lure of beating the law-and-order drum every three years remains too strong.

But so long as the politicians strut and tub-thump, and avoid deeper and more thorough solutions, there will be more incidents like those we have seen this week. Communities will continue to feel anxious about their security, and those at risk will still get a raw deal.

Sadly, nothing looks likely to change. The law-and-order drum will soon go back in the cupboard, only to be brought out once again when the next election comes around in three years’ time.

When Bill Clinton first ran for President of the United States, back in 1992, his campaign chief James Carville coined the now immortal phrase “it’s the economy stupid” to focus his team on what that year’s election was all about.

Over thirty years earlier, Stanford University economist Anthony Downs had postulated the theory that because they do not understand all the nuances of economic policy, voters judge governments at election time on how much they intervene in the domestic economy and what impact that has. He argued that public opinion about economic management was shaped like the traditional bell-curve, with a small group of voters having extreme views at either end of the spectrum, and the bulk of voters holding more moderate opinions in the middle. In turn, this meant mainstream political parties shaped their economic policies in a more centrist way to maximise their political support.

Downs’ theories and Carville’s bluntly stated pragmatism are relevant to New Zealand’s current economic position, just three months before the General Election.

The government’s management of the economy will be centre stage during the coming election campaign. And the public’s assessment of that will determine who leads the next government. The picture looks gloomy at present. The annual increase in consumer prices is the steepest in thirty years, mortgage interest rates are going up more rapidly than at any point since the 1980s, unemployment is projected to rise steadily over the next year, and economic growth levels look likely to remain relatively flat.

But the worse may be yet to come. The economy is already technically in recession, although it is possible that may not last too long. Elsewhere, the prospects are not so promising. The agriculture sector has been hit hard by the adverse weather events earlier in the year and weaker demand than usual in some markets. For differing reasons, the manufacturing and construction sectors are in decline as economic activity slows. The return of tourists has boosted the retail and transport sectors, but the service sector is starting to slow again, after a strong post-Covid19 recovery. The removal of the 25 cents a litre fuel price subsidy on 1 July will have an adverse effect right across the economy, as the queues at petrol stations this week and near panic buying in some places shows.

The government’s response, consistent with Downs’ theory, has been to boost its spending and influence in the areas of most concern – social services, education, and health. This was especially so in the early days of the post pandemic recovery and enjoyed public support at the time. But that has waned as time has gone on, and the government has started to acknowledge its pit of resources is not bottomless. However, right now, the challenge for all political parties is to work out where the new economic political equilibrium lies.

There are increasing questions about the quality, purpose, and priority of some of the government’s post pandemic spending, and whether it is becoming too involved in day-to-day economic activity and therefore distorting the market. However, there is no apparent enthusiasm for a complete change of direction and a return to the much more open market economy that prevailed before 2017. Although the Greens and Te Pati Māori shout at one end of the spectrum for more, rather than less, intervention, and ACT calls at the other end for complete government withdrawal, both Labour and National seek more centrist positions, more aligned with where they perceive the bulk of public opinion to be today. At the same time, neither appear clear where the new equilibrium should lie, and how they might achieve that.

Labour and National know full well that Carville’s mantra will influence many voters’ decisions at election time. The mini scandals that have engulfed Labour of late will have some influence, but for most voters the key factors will be whether they feel better or worse off economically than three years ago, and which parties they see as likely to improve their situation over the next three years.

Right now, confidence levels are very low, which does not augur well for the government’s electoral prospects. The Roy Morgan confidence survey last month reported an “extremely low level” of consumer confidence, although there were modest expectations inflation may fall during the next year. An Auckland Business Chamber survey in May reported nearly 55% of respondents expecting the economy to decline further over the next year.

The government’s problem is that it appears to have played all its cards – to minimal effect. The removal of the fuel price subsidy from the weekend marks the end of the last of the major Covid19 support measures. Subsequent steps – like the removal of the $5 prescription charge, or the extension of twenty hours free early childhood education, assuming all the problems with it are overcome – do not take effect until after the election. The new public transport subsidies for students and children, due to start from the beginning of July, have struck implementation problems in some larger cities, meaning its roll-out will be uneven.

In contrast, National has yet to play any significant economic cards. This may be because it is still finalising its position, or because it knows, in concert with ACT, full well what it intends to do, but does not want to scare the horses by revealing too much, too soon.

The one thing all the parties and the voters seem to agree on is “it’s (still) the economy stupid”. But beyond that, voters are still waiting to be convinced which party is more likely to be best for them.

 

 

There are strong echoes of the Clark Labour government’s “Closing the Gaps” programme in the system now being used by Auckland surgeons to prioritise patients on ethnicity, geographic location and equity grounds.

“Closing the Gaps” sought to assist socio-economically disadvantaged Māori and Pasifika through specially targeted programmes. Labour had campaigned on this at the 1999 election and started to implement the policy in its first Budget in 2000. Labour’s aim was to combat the systemic racism it saw at the time by confronting socio-economic disparities directly and promoting greater opportunities for Māori and Pasifika.

Although “Closing the Gaps” was popular with Māori, it was dogged from the outset by strident political opposition, culminating in Don Brash’s infamous Orewa Rotary Club speech in early 2004, where he argued for one standard of citizenship for all. The government had stopped referring to “Closing the Gaps” from mid-2000, talking instead about “reducing inequalities”. Nevertheless, it was so stung by the Orewa speech, and the positive response it attracted, that it established an audit of all government programmes to ensure they were being administered on the basis of need, rather than ethnicity. 

Between 1999 and 2004 Labour’s language deliberately changed from an overt, aggressive emphasis on “Closing the Gaps” with Māori and Pasifika to one of meeting needs and reducing inequalities. But the underlying emphasis on improving the socio-economic status of Māori and Pasifika was retained, as they remained the groups where need was the greatest.

Overall, there were material gains by Māori and Pasifika during the entire nine-year term of the Clark government. But Labour stopped acknowledging these after the Orewa speech. Ironically, this gave rise to a sense that Labour was actually neglecting the interests of Māori and Pasifika, reinforced by the foreshore and seabed controversy later in 2004, which was the catalyst for the formation of the original Māori Party.

The same focus on reducing inequality lies behind the ethnicity priority approach Auckland surgeons began following earlier this year to improve Māori and Pasifika access to surgical services. With statistics showing Māori currently have less access to specialist health services because of factors like geographic location, and seven years’ less life expectancy than non-Māori, there is a strong logic supporting the approach being taken in Auckland.

However, the political reaction has been no different from “Closing the Gaps” twenty years ago. The National and ACT Parties have decried the policy as separatist, saying that access to health services should not be determined by need not ethnicity, and that they will overturn it if they form the next government. Prime Minister Hipkins, reminiscent of Helen Clark after the Orewa speech, while defending the policy intent, has sought assurances from his Health Minister that “we are not replacing one form of discrimination with another”. Sounding more doctor than politician, as is her wont, her initial response has been that there are sound clinical reasons for the ethnicity focused approach. But in the meantime, plans to roll-out the initiative across the rest of the country have been put on indefinite hold.     

Already, as with “Closing the Gaps”, the focus of the government’s narrative is shifting from the process, to its intended outcomes. Just as “reducing inequalities” over twenty years ago was promoted by the Clark government as more palatable than “Closing the Gaps”, the early signs are that this government will shift its focus to “reducing disparities”, rather than talking too much about the mechanism by which it intends to achieve this.

But rather than retreat into its shell, and pretend the policy is not happening any more, the way Labour did after 2004, the current government needs to be more activist in explaining why it considers the ethnicity factor to be so important. After all, the evidence that Māori and Pasifika have worse health outcomes than everyone else, is overwhelming. Labour should feel on solid ground in focusing its approach on expanding health access to Māori and Pasifika to improve their life expectancy and overall quality of life, but without implying that this will come at the expense of the needs of others.

But if it decides to ignore the current policy debate, in the hope the controversy surrounding it will evaporate over time, it will run the strong risk, as happened in 2004, of being seen to be doing nothing, handing Te Pati Māori once more a strong weapon to beat it around the head with, but this time only four months before the election.

Given the way things are going right now though, in the words of American baseball great and legendary Malapropist, Yogi Berra, “it looks like déjà vu all over again.”

 

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' office found out on a Friday evening that Minister Michael Wood had yet to sell his shares in Auckland Airport despite warnings over two years he needed to do so. But it took them until the Sunday evening to advise the Prime Minister of this and the likely political row once the news became public.

 

National Leader Christopher Luxon decided to order a Tesla car as the self-drive car he was entitled to as Leader of the Opposition. His office apparently had misgivings, given Luxon's earlier criticisms of the government's subsidy scheme for electric vehicles, including Teslas. Following their intervention, Luxon changed his mind and cancelled the order. 

 

In the previous term, allegations of sexual harassment by a Labour staffer were held back by her office from the then Prime Minister on the grounds that keeping her in the dark would protect her from any suggestion she knew about the allegations and had not acted. By the time she became involved, it looked as though she had been covering for staffer concerned.

 

In all these cases the damage had been done by the time the leader became aware of the circumstances, and they were on the political defensive as a result while the issue played out in the public arena.

 

Each of these incidents raises questions about the role and performance of the respective leaders’ offices at the time. The leader’s office – be it the office of the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition – and their senior staff within, play a critical, often backroom, role in our system. They provide not only the administrative support that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition require to do their jobs, but more importantly are often the leader’s political eyes and ears on a day-to-day basis.

 

A good leader’s office will keep its leader closely informed about what is going on around Parliament – the gossip as well as the reality – with the aim of ensuring the leader is not caught out or taken by surprise. Leaders need to know quickly and early what situations are developing so that they can deal with them. The worst thing any Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition wants is to be caught on the back foot having to defend a situation that may not be of their making, but to which they will be expected to respond.

 

The leader’s office should also be co-ordinating the implementation of the party’s political and Parliamentary strategy. This is especially so for the Prime Minister’s office, and the chief of staff in particular, who ought to be co-ordinating the activities of all Ministers’ offices to ensure they are working towards achieving the government’s objectives. Former chiefs of staff (like Jim Bolger’s Rob Eaddy, Helen Clark’s Heather Simpson, and Sir John Key’s Wayne Eagelson) were particularly adept in this role and were extremely influential members of those governments as a result. (Indeed, Heather Simpson was such a pervasive figure she became widely known as H2 to Helen Clark’s H1!)

 

It is hard to imagine the situations Hipkins and Luxon have faced recently occurring under any of those former chiefs of staff, which begs the question of what is going on within leaders’ offices at present.

 

Sources suggest that during Ardern’s time as Prime Minister, her leader’s office pulled back from actively co-ordinating and overseeing the operation of Ministers’ offices, preferring to leave that role to individual Ministers, under the overall guidance of the Cabinet. That loose arrangement for managing the day-to-day activities of the government seems to be continuing under Hipkins, which may lie at the heart of the government’s delivery problems. While it may have been a genuine but naïve attempt to keep Ministers, rather than officials, at the forefront of implementing government policy, it has not worked in practice and has left the Prime Minister isolated from many day-to-day aspects of government. That means small brush fires often become bigger scrub fires before the Prime Minister gets to hear about them, as was the case with the Wood situation.

 

A large part of this is due to inexperience on the part of both Ministers and staffers about their respective roles and how they should interact. Beyond that, there seems to be a general unwillingness to accept or even invite relevant external advice about this, which implies an insecurity and lack of trust about advice generally.

 

Politicians often like to believe they know best. This can sometimes translate into an unwariness or downright unwillingness to trust staff and the advice they give, because, unlike the politicians, they have not been elected by the public. While correct, it overlooks the point that whatever they may think, politicians cannot do everything by themselves. They need the support of professional staff to achieve their political goals, and to present them with the wider picture when their own views become myopic, or out of touch.

 

Hipkins has been forced to learn all this the hard way, as his increasingly testy response last week to questions about Wood showed. Luxon has so far tried to laugh off the Tesla incident, but will no doubt learn from it regarding the role of his office, in Opposition or in government for the future.

 

The way both offices left their leaders exposed should be timely reminders that their role is to ensure their leaders are always kept in the loop to avoid trouble, rather than advising them only when the damage, however big or small, has been done, and a mop-up job is required.