The incompetence of the Ardern office

The Herald reports:

Cabinet Secretary Rachel Hayward said it was “highly unusual” for Labour MP Michael Wood to continue to have shares in Auckland Airport despite being told repeatedly to sell them.

She also said the “difficulties in getting traction on the issue” called for the involvement of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, which usually resolved the issue – but in Wood’s case, it had not.

The letter is below:

This reinforces a point that I have made before – the PMs Office under Ardern was reasonably incompetent. There is no way they should have allowed it to stretch on for months yet alone years. And when you can’t get even such basic stuff right, is it no surprise that the Ardern Government failed to deliver on so many of their promises?

Let me illustrate how this issue would have been dealt with by three previous PMs Chief of Staffs:

• Doug Martin (Jenny Shipley): “Minister, this is untidy. It should have been resolved by now. It shouldn’t have even got to me, but now it has, we are going to make sure I don’t need to tell the Prime Minister she has a problem with her Transport Minister”. Outcome: shares sold in 72 hours.
• Heather Simpson (Helen Clark): “Michael, you will sell those shares today. I want to see the sale certificate by Friday, otherwise don’t come in on Monday”. Outcome: shares sold in 12 hours, and several sessions with a psychiatrist to recover from an H2 encounter
• Wayne Eagleson (John Key): “Michael, I’ve just had the Cabinet Secretary in. This may seem minor to you, but it exposes the Prime Minister to potential attacks that his Cabinet is acting in self interest, not the public interest. It needs to be sorted really quickly, otherwise I’m going to have to talk to the boss. I haven’t bothered him with it yet, because it’s my job to look after stupid stuff like this, so if you get it sorted this week, then all will be good”. Outcome: shares sold in 72 hours.

I can guarantee you that under Martin, Simon or Eagleson this would not have dragged on for two and a half years.