Instead of talking up his visit to Vietnam this week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon faced a barrage of questions about Mr Bayly’s departure.
Mr Bayly resigned from his Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Accident Compensation Corporation portfolios late on Friday night, following the fallout from what he has described as an animated or lively discussion with a staff member about work on Tuesday a week ago.
He began his statement, released on Monday, by saying: "Concerns have been raised with me about a recent incident in which my behaviour towards a staff member was overbearing and for that, I am deeply sorry.
"As many of you know, I have been impatient to drive change in my ministerial portfolios. Last week I had an animated discussion with a staff member about work. I took the discussion too far, and I placed a hand on their upper arm, which was inappropriate."
Quite what impatience to drive change has to do with this scenario is unclear. Was he trying to say he was stressed out because he was working so hard or did he want us to believe the staffer was not moving fast enough to drive the change sought?
In his Monday media appearance, which lasted less than five minutes, he did clarify he held the upper arm of the staffer but had not touched the arm with force.
In response to questioning, he said a complaint had been laid, something which should have been said upfront.
We can only guess whether animated/lively discussions might involve yelling and screaming or swearing because Mr Bayly and Mr Luxon were not forthcoming on the details of what took place.
The notion of things going too far is a vague one too — perhaps that expression is de rigueur after Mr Luxon used it to describe the recent Destiny Church library protest.
Much has been made by Mr Luxon about Mr Bayly holding himself accountable, but we wonder whether it was only the pressure of the complaint hovering over him that made him realise he had behaved badly.
His demeaning of a worker then, including making a mocking L for loser sign on his own forehead, suggested a standard we might expect from an immature year 10 pupil.
While there will be many who consider Mr Bayly should have lost his ministerial warrant after that incident, others will have appreciated the enthusiasm the former merchant banker applied to his portfolios.
His work included instigating reviews of the Commerce Commission’s operation, and more recently the ACC, plans to modernise the Companies Act and insurance rules, and pushing progress towards open banking.
Questions have been raised about why the resignation, although it came late on Friday night, was not revealed until Monday.
It could be seen as reasonable, giving time for all the people affected to be notified, including Mr Bayly’s family, or stage management by the PM’s public relations team designed to minimise the time for backlash before he headed to Vietnam this week.
Mr Luxon’s inability to clearly state whether he would have sacked Mr Bayly had he not resigned first does not paint him as the decisive leader he believes himself to be.
Initially, he fobbed off answering this by saying it was hypothetical because Mr Bayly had resigned.
In a tortuous radio interview in which Mike Hosking tried to get an unequivocal response to this question, Mr Luxon repeatedly waffled about how Mr Bayly’s behaviour would not have met his standards for his ministers before eventually conceding he would have been demoted. He could not bring himself to say sacked.
Even the usually sympathetic Mr Hosking was exasperated.
We understand. Both Mr Bayly and Mr Luxon could have used much more direct and accurate language to describe the situation.
Their fudginess just adds to the intrigue.
