The apprentice took a leaf out of the master’s book on Wednesday with his unexpected Cabinet reshuffle. In 2013, during his second term as prime minister, Mr Key sprang a major surprise by dismissing ministers deemed to be underperforming, as well as making several other changes to his Cabinet lineup.
Mr Luxon’s changes this week — dropping the now former broadcasting minister Melissa Lee from Cabinet entirely and firing Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds from the disabilities portfolio — bear striking similarities.
As with Mr Key’s changes, they came from the blindside to catch both ministers and observers unawares. They did not entirely sideline MPs who might be useful one day in the future but they did place both them, and more importantly their colleagues, on notice that the CEO PM brooks no nonsense.
One of the greatest sins any minister can commit is for them to make any controversial story in their portfolio about them rather than being about the issue.
In Ms Lee’s broadcasting portfolio the key issue — the sustainability of the mainstream media in the face of dwindling revenue streams, and resulting mass lay-offs and programme cancellations at both Newshub and state-owned TVNZ — was quickly obscured by Ms Lee’s initial refusal to comment when asked reasonable questions, and her increasingly tangled responses when she did finally speak to reporters.
If Ms Lee had any plans to address the many and varied issues which face the sector, they were not readily apparent.
Her apparent prevarication was her undoing, as the spotlight shone on Ms Lee rather than on the vexed question of how to sustain broadcast journalism. As a long-standing broadcasting spokeswoman for her party and a former television presenter herself, Ms Lee had appeared well-suited for the role but was found wanting.
Ms Simmonds will have been bitterly disappointed at losing the disabilities portfolio. As the mother of a disabled child, this is a field in which she has done valuable work in the past and in which she really wanted to make a lasting difference into the future.
Her misfortunes are somewhat different from those of Ms Lee. She had, unexpectedly, been handed a poison chalice courtesy of the recently established ministry Whaikaha not adequately monitoring its budget and giving its new manager a fiscal blow-out to deal with.
This would have been a challenge for any minister, but Ms Simmonds’ misstep was not to have rigorous control of the message some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable were being sent. An ill-advised Facebook post from the ministry was the first most knew about the problem and it immediately sparked fears of service cuts.
As a result both Mr Luxon and Finance Minister Nicola Willis found themselves having to take up far too much time dealing with this unexpected issue and — as we found out on Wednesday — that is not how Mr Luxon rolls.
Ms Simmonds retained her environment and tertiary education and skills portfolios. With resource management reforms and vocational education restructuring looming, Ms Simmonds will clearly need to raise her game to regain the confidence of her leader.
Labour will be pleased to have two "scalps" so early into its time in opposition, although its efforts had far more to do with Ms Simmonds’ than Ms Lee’s demise.
Notwithstanding his casual language, Mr Luxon should come out on the positive side of the ledger from this episode.
While six months into a government is worryingly early to be sacking people, it does demonstrate a recognition that there were problems and a willingness to fix them. Far worse would have been to let both these wounds fester.
That said, these were easy issues to deal with as they involved National party ministers. Mr Luxon may have found it much harder to be decisive had it been an Act New Zealand or New Zealand First minister in the frying pan.
That may be a test to come, but for now having shown a little steel should do Mr Luxon no harm whatsoever.
