More cronyism

More cronysim from National: they've appointed former MP Belinda Vernon to the board of Maritime New Zealand. According to her Wikipedia entry, Vernon actually has prior experience in the shipping industry, so she may actually be qualified for the job. But appointing her in this way makes her look like just another crony, undermining both the position and her reputation.

If these appointments were made by an independent body then we might be able to have confidence that cases like this were merit-based appointments. The fact that they are made by Ministers, with a proven habit of bypassing process to shoulder-tap their former colleagues to well-renumerated positions means that we cannot.