I have two concerns. Firstly, Judith Collins is a very component Minister why does he not leave it to her to make her recommendation.

Secondly, why does he not learn from Power’s mistake? Does Key not have confidence in our judges or QCs as to their competence and/or impartiality?

I have a civil court case with a former lawyer. I would like assurance that the judge has not association with this former lawyer. Judging by his unfair ruling it make me think it a good possibility.

Why do we need a judge in any case to do the report? We just need someone with a degree of common sense.

thats right. he’s right you know when should we take our money out to $AUD or $CANADA it must be soon,
the madman Gareth wants more taxes and so do Green and Labour, the third tax on assets, how long before Key can no longer resist . Also remember NZFirst want devaluation and the talks are going on now.
disclosure I am a NZst member

Accept a lot of what Kiwi in America has said, but Im very disappointed with Parata’s performance and would have liked to see some accountability for her non performance. More importantly, I think she is an electoral liability. perhaps the Pm thinks he can give her a little longer to lift her game and failing that respond to the public’s mood by sacking her closer to the election.

Heatley was hopeless. The PM saw he had no ideas and was not on top of his department. the opposition were all over him at question time.

Ive sometimes wondered if Key doesnt like Wilkinson and was peeved over the way she resigned her portfolio over Pike River instead of walking from Cabinet. She did well to win Waimakariri. Will she take this hint and retire? If not, watch out for a low list spot in 2014.

Congrats to Kaye and Woodhouse, although The PM has been very cautious in the portfolios assigned to Woodhouse. Rightly so.

The PM went beyond what i expected. What will Shearer do?

A modest amount of coverage has been complimentary, except for some hissiness from Clare Curran.

http://yourdunedin.org/2013/01/23/reaction-to-woodhouses-promotion/

Nick Smith’s return was predictable muddied only slighty by his unseemly self promotion over the last few days. That said even though Smith is an economic squishy wet, he has excellent political skills and well above average portfolio management and many years of the strategic vision implimentation at the Cabinet level. His close relationship with fellow brat packers Ryall and English, both essential power houses in the Key cabinet, helped in his swift rehabilitation. Crusher Collins’ swift cauterization of the Bronwyn Pillar inflicted ACC wound also helped.

Parata’s continued presence in Cabinet was the subject of discussion amongst all my politically astute connections on a recent Christmas business trip to NZ. THe concensus we reached was:
* Key is very anxious to not annoy the Maori Party – whilst there is no love lost between Parata and Sharples/Turia, her sacking or demotion would be seen (and publicly commented on) as a slight to Maori. It underlies the fragility of National’s coalition in this crucial year as they attempt to manouvre the SOE partial floats throught the icebergs of the court case and the referendum.
* Education is a behemouth department taking some time for a new Minister to make a mark. Parata’s missteps are partly her not being on top of the bureaucracy in a way to manage the political risks of policies not essentially of her sole making (eg Chch schools restructure). Key has undoubtedly given Hekia a relatively narrow window in which to turn things around and she has assured hm that she will.
* The weeping sore of Novapay has been deftly moved off Parata’s direct watch to a side bay where its last messes can be cleaned up. Outside the beltway, most people realize that huge IT jobs like this are often problematic. Labour ordered this boondoggle and ministers other than Parata oversaw its development – she happened to be the one on deck when it was launched and it had the usual glitches associated with massive upending IT projects in the government sector (remember all the dramas with the Police’s INCIS system). Plus there is a slight degree of discounting any of the education sector union bleating because most people realize they are never kind to centre right governments.
* The Christchurch Schools situation is complex and tricky. My brother in law is on the BOT of a primary school surrounded by other primary schools scheduled for closure so he is at ground zero of this issue. He agreed with me that whilst the Ministry could’ve done the announcement more carefully and allowed a longer and more extensive consultation process (essentially what they’ve ended up deciding after all the hooha), there is no nice way to do this. Communities will be upended and schools that by any objective criteria need to be closed have vocal staff and parents giving a willing media a 1000 reasons why not to close THAT school. Everyone you talk to in Chch acknowledges the global reality of Chch post earthquakes (4500 students left and 300+ teachers and associated classrooms surplus to requirement) but no one wants the axe to fall on THEIR school. It is NIMBYism on a grand scale! Comparisons to previous Ministers of Education closing hundreds of schools in the past have little relevance. Even the large school closure programme in Invercargill is massively dwarfed by what is needed in Chch. Plus there were not hundreds of thousands of residents traumatized by 10,000s of aftershocks and earthquake ravaged communities. With NZ’s massive switch to secularism the role of the churches in being what used to be the glue of the community in a crisis has been largely replaced by schools and so these proposed closures are a sledgehammer that any government, minstry and minister would struggle to make palatable. I suspect that Parata will be given as much help as possible as the decisions come to a head and perhaps in some perverse way Key has set her up to be the fall person for the inevitable backlash that will occur in Chch and replace her once that job is done allowing a new Min Ed to clean up the residual mess and move on.

Key’s judgements about who gets promoted and who demoted will be based not just on public perceptions of those individuals but also on a whole lot of stuff that we the public do not know, including (for example) the problems which ministers have deftly fixed or made to disappear without anyone else noticing.

Not sure if he is but haven’t heard he’s not

could be the most successful Kiwi beneficiary ever

Well he’d have to be fucking stupid then wouldn’t he because most of us political observers knew different from the first time we saw her a bit like the first time we all saw Alamein Kopu. And most of us political observers didn’t have the benefit of the close contact that Key had had with her, over the years, before she hit the limelight.

By the time it became apparent that she was useless he had committed himself to retaining her in the Cabinet.

It’s been apparent she’s useless for a fucking long time and he could have, if he’d wanted, chucked her out right up until the time he heavily endorsed her to the journos travelling with him to Antartica, and no-one forced him to do that. Did they.

Sorry mm but your theory doesn’t fit the facts as we all know them. No banana for you.

You could no more have a converstaion with this lot than fly to the moon.

Welcome to MMP Paul. Isn’t it good.

Jonathan Coleman got promoted, didn’t he?

and thats what happens when you have no good people, promote someone who keeps his botty clean, but does nothing except say yes leader, be sick here dude, vomit here

About as useful as a race relations Conciliator

She will be the youngest female Minister in National’s history

Well, big fucking deal, another one who has never had a real job. We are being ruled by people half with zero life experience and the other half idiots. Jamie Ross, this bint,mjy little pony, the red headed chaser of naked boys, its crap. You could no more have a converstaion with this lot than fly to the moon.

That’s why I said “I wonder” mm.

Fact remains: i.e. not an assumption, Parata is a serious underperformer, but Key for some unknown reason gives her a free ticket and I don’t know about you but I can’t think of another minister in Cabinet who gets such a free ticket. The question is why that might be, mm. What’s your view?

The cynical in me suggests this is about lining up maori to set up a Maori and sympathisers Cabinet to introduce a Consitution including the TOW.

There aren’t enough Maori in the caucus to do that V2. Anyway Key will hand the constitutional review off to the Maori Party and let them sell it. Which they will, because the entire opposition would not dare oppose it, they’ll cheer it. But Parata doesn’t need to be in the Cabinet to do that.