Someone asks you to do something, and you say you will. But then life gets busy, things crop up to distract you, that thing that you said you would do gets put to one side, unintentionally overlooked.
Poor old Michael Wood is busier than most of us, carrying weighty and hectic Cabinet portfolios. It is understandable why he might not have sold his shares in Auckland Airport at the first time of asking.
Or maybe even the second time.
The other 10 times though, making 12 reminders in all of the potential conflict of interest risk that the until recent days Minister of Transport was running, are a lot harder to explain.
Mr Wood is not an incapable or stupid man. There is a reason why he has risen high in Labour’s standings and was briefly talked about as a potential prime minister to replace Jacinda Ardern — the party must be incredibly relieved it dodged that bullet.
But the one which has winged it this week is serious enough and is just the latest example of clumsiness keeping the Chris Hipkins administration grounded rather than soaring.
Firstly, just a couple of months after Mr Hipkins ascended to the top role, he had to dismiss former police minister Stuart Nash for various breaches of the Cabinet Manual.
Then last week Mr Hipkins’ replacement as Education Minister, Jan Tinetti, was referred to the Privileges Committee after it emerged that despite being told that she had made a false statement to the House about the release of school attendance data, she did not correct the record until May 2.
At least she eventually corrected the record. Mr Wood’s sin was not only that he had a potential conflict of interest, but that despite being notified of the problem it remained unresolved after a dozen reminders.
This created many problems.
Firstly, although there is no suggestion that in any way Mr Wood was seeking to make personal profit from his oversight — he has assured Mr Hipkins that his shareholding did not influence his decision making and that assurance is accepted — a perception of a potential conflict of interest arises, and perceptions matter.
Secondly, there is a mechanism through which MPs’ potential conflicts of interest are identified and managed, the register of pecuniary interests.
This document lists what properties and assets MPs own and what significant debts they owe, so the public can be assured that politician’s public stance on issues is not coloured by unknown association.
Issues seldom arise — the register’s main entries are properties owned and mortgages owed. It is unlikely that any issues arise from Mr Wood’s decision-making in this case.
But the public should have known that there might have been, and Mr Wood should have recognised the issue and potentially recused himself from some discussions.
A few shares bought two decades ago might not seem a big thing to get a head of steam up over, but where questions about how public money is spent arise even small sums are significant.
Parliament’s registrar Sir Maarten Wevers agrees and yesterday, having conducted a preliminary review of a request by National MP Chris Penk for an inquiry into the whole sorry mess, decided it was warranted and would be undertaken.
Mr Hipkins, who would have hoped the issue might be tidied away swiftly and Mr Wood rapidly reinstated, is now faced with an almighty mess which will drag on for weeks, if not months.
Meanwhile, Ms Tinetti yesterday fronted up to the privileges committee, where she indulged in a lot of ‘‘deeply regretting’’ about how she had handled not correcting the record of the House more promptly and the fact that she had not given the issue greater consideration.
Again, there seems no issue of impropriety, but there does seem to be a great lack of due care and attention and a degree of sloppiness about the way this has played out.
The whole three-minister shemozzle paints a dismaying picture of a Cabinet either ignorant of, or lackadaisical about, simple rules of governance. Neither picture is a pretty one for Labour to stand in front of when it begins its campaign for re-election in two months’ time.
Mr Hipkins has no doubt read the riot act — again — to his ministers — and so he should have. Neither he, nor the public, will tolerate any more slipups.
