Wednesday, March 21, 2012



Good riddance

Nick Smith has resigned all of his portfolios. Good riddance. He had attempted to interfere in the operational decisions of ACC in order to aid a crony while being Minister for that portfolio. His behaviour verges on corrupt, and shows that he lacks the judgement required to be a Minister. We are better off without that sort of person in our Cabinet.

The question now is what this means for his portfolios. The news there is probably bad: climate change denial and destroying the environment are tribal shibboleths of the right, and so these portfolios will almost certainly go to someone with no commitment to them. On the other hand, a change in Ministers may disrupt Smith's plans for Wellington to take over local government, just as his loss of the ACC portfolio disrupted his plans for privatisation.