The Prime Minister has undone any credit he’d earned for his swiftness in getting Stuart Nash out of the police portfolio by applying a ‘three strikes and you’re still not out’ policy, writes political editor Jo Moir
Chris Hipkins was scheduled for a public- and media-free day at his Beehive desk on Friday to catch up on paperwork.
Those grand plans went out the window on Thursday night when his already embattled minister, Stuart Nash, contacted him to say he’d recalled another problematic conflict that might need dealing with.
This came after it was revealed earlier on Thursday that Nash had been reprimanded by the Attorney-General, David Parker, in 2020 for making inappropriate comments on Newstalk ZB about a case before the courts.
That was already Nash’s second strike – on Wednesday he’d gone on the same radio programme and outed himself by boasting about urging the Police Commissioner in 2021 to appeal a court decision related to an illegal firearms case.
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While that clear breach of the Cabinet manual prompted Hipkins to see him gone from the police portfolio, the second strike – the rebuke by Parker – resulted in no consequence at all.
Nash hadn’t recalled the conversation with Parker when he spoke to Hipkins on Wednesday and resigned his police role, that’s despite Hipkins seeking assurances there was nothing else that would come to light.
Even on Thursday when Nash joined Hipkins in Hawkes Bay and faced questions about his behaviour, Nash said nothing about the 2020 incident, which had caught the attention of the Solicitor-General and was handed to Parker to deal with.
A journalist jogged his memory for him just a few hours later.
Hipkins responded by saying it was in the past and had been handled appropriately at the time, but Nash was now on his final warning.
While Hipkins might think being dropped to the bottom of the Cabinet rankings is an embarrassment and stain on Nash’s reputation, it means absolutely nothing to the public.
By Thursday evening Nash’s political amnesia was wearing off and he’d recalled yet another misstep.
This was in September last year when in his capacity as MP for Napier he contacted a senior official at the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment to look at an immigration case of a health professional in his electorate.
Yet another breach of his position by not using the established processes for these sorts of things, which is to contact the Associate Minister for Immigration.
Hipkins spent all of Friday working out how best to deal with Nash – pushing back a pre-recorded interview he’d committed to as he repeatedly questioned his minister.
By 3.45pm – his quiet day catching up on paperwork completely taken over by a fact-finding mission on Nash – Hipkins fronted media at Parliament to say the latest incident “demonstrates a pattern of behaviour” that doesn’t reach the standard expected of ministers.
Remarkably, having considered the breaking of protocol alongside the rebuke from the Attorney-General and the breach of the Cabinet manual in calling up the Police Commissioner, Hipkins had decided Nash deserved no further punishment at all.
While Hipkins might think being dropped to the bottom of the Cabinet rankings is an embarrassment and stain on Nash’s reputation, it means absolutely nothing to the public.
If, after two more serious errors of judgment are revealed, you still have a seat at the Cabinet table, then whether you’re ranked 11th or 20th doesn’t matter.
Hipkins says Nash can’t recall any other previous instances that might be a problem in the future but won’t even commit to stripping him of his other portfolios if anything else does come to light.
Hipkins knew nothing of the telling-off Parker had given Nash because it was never passed up the chain to the then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, or to him when he took office in February.
That information would have been useful to Hipkins when deciding how to discipline Nash after he revealed his conversation with the Police Commissioner, and chances are if he’d known about it then he might have come down harder on him.
Afterall, Hipkins acted based on it being a one-off error and not a pattern of them.
But if Hipkins is to be taken at his word, then the final warning he issued on Thursday when he said “he’s on notice over any future serious errors of judgment” should have resulted in Nash being removed from Cabinet on Friday.
Hipkins has acknowledged the latest incident is another serious error of judgment that doesn’t meet his expectations, and Nash himself told media on Thursday he knew he was out of chances.
It was already questionable judgment from Hipkins when Nash held onto his forestry, economic development and oceans and fisheries portfolios after the first strike on Wednesday given how much he’d doubled down on having not done anything wrong when first approached about his chat with the commissioner.
Some gave the Prime Minister credit for dealing with it in just a couple of hours and making it clear to Nash there were no more ‘get-out-of-jail-free-cards’.
Forty-eight hours later and Nash looks to have a whole deck of them.
Hipkins started the week clearing his own deck of any distractions when he threw $1 billion of policy and programmes onto the bonfire.
By Friday he was happy for the past three days to have been dominated by the worst distraction of all – a minister who doesn’t know the boundaries of his political office – and was completely tolerant of repeat offending.
Hipkins says Nash can’t recall any other previous instances that might be a problem in the future but won’t even commit to stripping him of his other portfolios if anything else does come to light.
If he’s serious about getting his Government’s focus firmly on the cost of living crisis, he has a very strange way of going about it.
