Fisking Slack

David Slack blogs:

You may recall the howls of derision in 2005.

How on earth can you be a minister and remain outside the government? they demanded.

That was then, this is now. This morning’s paper tells me:

Mr Key acknowledged yesterday that he was wrong and “in hindsight” it had worked well.

But David is mixing up two different things. The howls of derision wasn’t about having Ministers from other parties outside Cabinet – it was the insane insistence that this meant they were not part of the Government.

As far as I know ACT and United Future will be Ministers outside Cabinet but they are not going to pretend not to be part of the Government.

Incidentally the insistence by NZ First that they were not part of Government was exposed as hollow when the reps on the Boundaries Commission were appointed – one for the Government and one for the Opposition. They were represented by the Government rep.