Soper unimpressed with Ardern’s first week back

Barry Soper writes:

Jacinda Ardern would have wanted a better first week back at work. …

Ardern was fustrated on many fronts, not the least that it was diverting attention away from other issues that she felt were much more important.

Perhaps if she’d done what she said she’d be doing within days at the beginning of the week and get someone to handle the infernal inquiry into Haumaha’s appointment process she wouldn’t have been so fustrated.

Government has only itself to blame for this. The controversy started in June, and it is now August and the inquiry hasn’t even started.

For her this week it’s been about as overused as the word “significant.”

That was applied to the fluff that was the Trade for All announcement at the beginning of the week and touted by Ardern before she came back to work.

Basically another working group.

And then there was the “significant” announcement of Mana in Mahi which was actually announced by the former Labour leader Andrew Little in 2016.

A reheated policy.

Then the final ‘significant” policy the media was lured into attending was the $8.4 six mental health units, yes six, being set up for those with high and complex needs.

That fustrated the hell out of National who’d earmarked a hundred million for mental health saying the latest initiative wouldn’t even register a drop in the bucket.

And a very small initiative.

So the PM’s first week back was a self-inflicted scandal, a fluff policy, a reheated policy and a tiny spending initiative which was billed as significant.

No wonder some in the gallery are underwhelmed.