Labour’s New Cabinet – Winners & Losers

When Jacinda won in 2017, she had to select a Cabinet from a very shallow talent pool, in 2020 she is selecting a Cabinet from the battle hardened and incredibly talented.

This is a Cabinet with surprises, concerning disappointments and genuine wins. These Ministers will oversee their Ministries at a time when Labour have an unprecedented MMP majority so there is no fog of Cabinet to hide policy failures.

 

WINNERS:

Sexual offending & Domestic abuse focus by Police – With Poto Williams taking over Police expect the focus to go off the chest beating Gangs hysteria stuff and move to a greater focus on domestic violence and sexual assault which impacts far more people than Gangs do.  You will see a political pressure to start more prosecutions and investigation of these types of crimes rather than the glamor gang headlines. Expect a hardline against arming police and real scrutiny over their chase policy.

Māori Caucus – They now make up a quarter of the Cabinet and while the most powerful faction inside the Government, they also have the biggest task. Māoridom are furious with the State providing social services that are biased against them and the demand to be given the money themselves to run their own services is becoming deafening. If these Māori MPs can’t force transformative change despite the enormous power they now have, then no one can.

Michael Wood – Rising star who is being given more responsibility.

Kiri Allen – Superstar who has earned being given more responsibility.

Ayesha Verrall – Insanely talented newbie who will add enormous intellectual grunt to the war on Covid.

Diversity – Compare Robert Muldoon’s Caucus…

…all the diversity of a loaf of white bread. Of course when we say ‘Diversity’ in NZ we mean identity politics NZ on Air funding application ‘diversity’, note how NO ONE has pointed out that the real lack of diversity here is from poor people. Most of this influx all own property, the Landlord class, the propertied class and the well to do are represented, renters can go fuck themselves.

 

LOSERS:

Beneficiaries – With the Grim Lady Sepuloni not only remaining in Social Welfare but also gaining jobs, the future looks incredibly bleak for beneficiaries. It means the toxic culture inside WINZ remains, the punitive nature of the abuse towards beneficiaries remains and by gaining the jobs portfolio, she’ll be marching those beneficiaries and the disabled into the ‘work sets you free’ style neoliberal welfare culture that we’ve all come to know and despise. Terrible day for the poorest amongst us.

Public Broadcasting – When the answer is Kris Faafoi, the question was ‘Who won’t do anything meaningful’. The weeping wound of public broadcasting will continue unsolved and  we will see no TVNZ-RNZ merger, we won’t see any move against Facebook and Google and  we will only see the same elite opinions being paid to echo chamber each others elite opinions.

A benign Foreign affairs perspective – With all due respect to Peeni Henare and Nanaia Mahuta, we are about to enter an incredibly unstable geopolitical chess match in the Pacific between China and America and Foreign Affairs and the NZDF may require Ministers who are laser like in their communication delivery. The challenges these positions will face over the next 3 years would be difficult enough for experienced Ministers, Henare and Mahuta are not the first names that would jump out.

Justice Reform & Hate Speech – Just close your eyes and imagine the effuse Kris Faafoi trying to explain that we are re-setting the sexual assault courts so that they create more convictions, or why heresy and blasphemy against Religion are included as hate speech or why we will be prosecuting people for misusing pronouns because it’s hate speech – just imagine him trying to explain that on ZB or Magic Talk.

Yeah.

That’s not happening. Andrew Little has the intellect and mana to be able to front foot those types of questions, Kris will implode 90 seconds into the interview. Pursuing hate speech laws or sexual assault court reforms is off the table while Faafoi is Minister, because embarking upon them with him as Minister will be the first casualty of Jacinda’s Cabinet.

Phil Twyford – Has been moved somewhere with no sharp objects. Will be moved out of Cabinet at the first reshuffle.

Bauble 1 – Marama Davidson, provides Labour with political camouflage. No power but all the blame

Bauble 2 – James Shaw inoculates the meaninglessness of doing bugger all on the climate and Jacinda can point to him being the Climate Minister anytime anyone points out how little we are doing.

Kelvin Davis – No, I’m not going to give him grief, Kelvin is a lovely bloke but a terrible poet. I feel for him because he’s been given the toxic neoliberal experiment that is Oranga Tamariki, the cursed Ministry that will destroy all who touch it. If he can force a culture change there the way he did with Corrections, it could be the single greatest achievement of this Government.

 

CONCLUSION: 

Now we have a majority Government, the factions inside Labour will do more to generate ideological friction than they ever have during MMP

The Province Princes – Labour bewilderingly won over 50% of the provinces and Nash and O’Conner have been given the responsibility to service that electorate. It’s a hell of a task and the sooner Kieran McAnulty can join them in this, the better.

The Brains Trust – This is where the real power is. Grant, David Parker, Andrew Little, Chippy and Megan Woods are the ones with the intellect to transform NZ.

The Māori Caucus – Have quarter of the Cabinet, if there is any push for reform in WINZ with a genuinely transformative agenda, it will have to come from here.

They have the talent, unfortunately the single minded focus on preventing Covid from destroying the country has meant this Government have no transformative vision so if none of the factions push for it, get ready for incremental nothingness which will be heralded by Wellington Union press releases as ‘another great first step’ style praise.

Why vote for Labour if all they do is implement policy to pacify National voters?

 

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