Ardern gets House in order
Getting the house ready for the arrival of a new addition is a stage of pregnancy many mothers remember fondly. It involves putting the finishing touches on the baby’s room, baby-proofing all the heavy and dangerous objects, and a tonne of cleaning.
What it doesn’t usually involve is telling those you leave behind at Parliament to keep it together, because bad behaviour will end in more than a loss of TV privileges.
Then again, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern isn’t really set to be a typical mother and the hazards she has to try to avoid aren’t what most new parents have to contend with.
Ardern will make sure her caucus is in no doubt about what’s expected of them. But regardless, now two weeks from her due date, Ardern will need to keep one eye firmly fixed on Wellington during her six weeks of maternity leave – which could realistically begin any day now.
Discipline will be an absolute requirement: Personal discipline from her MPs, so that Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters doesn’t have to exact it.
Keep your heads down, your phones on flight mode and the stupid mistakes to a minimum for the duration, lest Captain Peters cast you out without a parachute.
It’s likely New Zealand will see more of the statesman-like and diplomatic side of Peters during his tenure in charge, but he has no qualms about admonishing bad behaviour and delivering a public tongue-lashing if required.
While it was Ardern’s job to strip Transport Minister Phil Twyford of his civil aviation portfolio for using his mobile phone on a plane after the cabin doors had been closed, it’s difficult not to assume the ignominy would have been far greater if Peters had been in charge.
That was proven earlier, when he delivered a public warning to Labour ministers Nanaia Mahuta and Willie Jackson over comments they made about the compulsory teaching of te reo in schools, that wasn’t consistent with the coalition Government’s messaging.
‘‘If they want to be in this Government, they’ll be on the same page,’’ said Peters. Advice they could all follow. Justice Minister Andrew Little may well be the latest example of why that’s necessary, after his botched messaging over planned justice reforms – not exactly news given Labour campaigned on repealing the three-strikes law.
But news that Little was preparing to push forward with it before Cabinet had had a chance to sign off on it seems like it could only have come from a limited number of places.
Instead of delivering a carefully crafted message alongside Ardern at a postCabinet press conference, Little found himself in a hastily arranged evening press standup claiming ‘‘fake news’’ on an obscure angle of the story, rather than talking to the public to allay fears over safety.
And while there’s only so much that can be done to prepare for this, it will be in the forefront of Ardern’s mind that National will use opportunities like that to make hay.
They already have on the three-strikes law, with Opposition leader Simon Bridges doing an effective job of asking where the plan was to reduce crime, to sit behind the plan to reduce prisoner numbers.
This week, the National Party also rolled out Facebook advertisements that wrongly accuse Labour of wanting to release violent criminals – but there’s a good chance they might be effective in a vacuum of any other information.
If for any reason the threestrikes revelation pointed to a subtle trend of emerging individualists while their enigmatic leader was away, Ardern will no doubt deliver a stern warning behind the scenes: ‘‘Behave yourselves for Mr Peters – because I don’t want to have to come back there.’’
Keep your heads down, your phones on flight mode and the stupid mistakes to a minimum for the duration, lest Captain Peters cast you out without a parachute.