The newly-appointed Media Minister has given vague responses when asked how he would approach his new portfolio, instead suggesting he wishes to spend the coming weeks "talking to as many people" as possible to inform his next steps. 

Senior cabinet minister, Paul Goldsmith - who already held four portfolios - was handed the Media and Communications role on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Christopher Luxon sacked Melissa Lee from her cabinet post. 

The move was criticised by senior Newstalk ZB political commentator, Barry Soper who said Luxon can't operate his cabinet like a business and needed a wider scope to justify removing Lee from her role. 

On Wednesday, the news was announced that two senior politicians in Melissa Lee and Penny Simmonds would be losing their portfolios to other ministers. Simmonds, who is outside of cabinet, lost her Disability Issues portfolio, Luxon explained this was to free her up to focus on her other roles. 

However, Lee was stripped of her title as Media and Communications Minister which demoted her from her cabinet role. The portfolio was then handed to Paul Goldsmith. Luxon, when addressing the switch up to the media, said the decision was the result of his management style and was done in the best interest of his cabinet's success.

"The way that I roll, and the way that I lead teams is I make sure I have my people in the right places, I make sure they're the right person on the right assignment at the right time and that's all that's happening here," he told the media.

"These portfolios have got more complex and as a result, I want senior cabinet ministers who have adjacent portfolio responsibilities that are linked to these portfolios, taking responsibility for them going forward."

Goldsmith spoke to Newstalk ZB this morning about picking up yet another portfolio, which joins his job list as Ministers for Justice, Arts, Culture and Heritage, State Owned Enterprises and Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. 

When pointed out he had a lot of jobs, Goldsmith said was simply being an obedient team player. 

"When the Prime Minister asks, you just say yes - and I'm very excited to get on with making some progress in these areas," he told ZB. 

"There's been a colossal change in the way people have collected their information and news over the last decade or so and [that means] there needs to be adaptation - but the advertising revenue that is used to sustain it has come under a bit of pressure.

"So we've got to work our way through 'how do we ensure we continue to have a real sustainable, strong media presence in the country'. It's not broken but under pressure."

Newstalk ZB's Andrew Dickens asked Goldsmith why the Government should be involving itself in the media sector, when it's "just a business not knowing how to do their business."

Goldsmith initially stumbled his way through a response, stating "well, look, that's one argument that can be put forward."

He then said there were issues around "levelness in playing field between what you might say are traditional providers and the streamers in terms of a whole host of things", and that "none of them on their own are going to make a huge difference, but collectively there are some things that could level the playing field, and that's what we're looking at."

On Melissa Lee's cabinet paper, which had reportedly drawn criticism from Luxon, Goldsmith said good work had been done on it and he would be looking to build on it. 

"I'll spend the next few weeks talking to as many people as I can to inform my own views as well."

Dickens pointed Goldsmith to an interview Lee had done with Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking several weeks ago when she struggled to respond to questions around New Zealand trying to curtail the streaming giants.

He asked Goldsmith if he was confident he could do that. 

"No, I'm not going to say I'll curb their power or anything like that," the Minister said. 

"But I think many countries have come up with different arrangements around how that is managed, it's not simple and I'm not suggesting we'll fix all the problems overnight or necessarily in the long term, but it's worth looking at the issues, recognising there's been a significant change."

Goldsmith said the old ways of the media operating were coming under pressure and that the Government should subsidise the old ways to return to something that is gone.

"You need to look at the settings, the regulations, the rules, and ask yourself if they are still fit for purpose, we'll assess all the various parties."

The move to drop Melissa Lee from her post came following the country's Ipsos survey, which stated 60 per cent of the country wanted a strong leader and 54 per cent agreed it needed a leader willing to break the rules. 

The survey results were quoted by senior political commentator, Barry Soper when pointing out while Luxon hadn't broken any rules, he'd removed a Minister who last year pulled out of interviews claiming her answers would be boring. 

"And in fact, she did give a few more interviews and they were boring - because she wouldn't tell us anything," said Soper. 

On Christopher Luxon's approach to removing Lee and Simmonds from their respective roles, Soper said the Prime Minister had "put his chief executive's hat" on and made the tough call. However, the commentator was unsure about the decision. 

He said the country's leader couldn't operate a cabinet with such fluidity between Minister roles, because it isn't the same as a business.

"you can't simply say 'well look, that portfolio is an issue there that the person shouldn't handle, we'll give the portfolio to someone else' - I mean politics doesn't work like that," said Soper. 

"[Not] in terms of removing these people, but you can't do it on an ad-hoc basis. What I'm saying is it's too narrow a scope for a cabinet minister, you've got to have a bit more of a performance issue before you remove them."

Soper also made mention of opposition leader, Chris Hipkins' reaction to the axing of Lee from cabinet. Hipkins told the media hours after Luxon's press conference that the Prime Minister needed to ask himself why he was stopping with Lee. 

"You've had Shane Jones and David Seymour question the judiciary, a minister of my Government did that and resigned from their relevant portfolio the same day it happened. I want to know why Chris Luxon thinks criticising the Waitangi Tribunal is okay, and not something he's going to take any action on," said Hipkins. 

"He's got his deputy Prime Minister who's also deputy of Foreign Affairs, likening any New Zealand to Nazi Germany, that's okay - but the actions of Melissa Lee are not? So I think Luxon has many questions to ask about why he's just stopped at those two."

Soper accused Hipkins of having "short-term memory" when referencing the minister of his Government who resigned after criticising the judiciary.

"He's referring to Stuart Nash there. He didn't go because he criticised the judiciary, it was because he told his donors what had been going on in cabinet. And it wasn't for five months after that that he finally criticised the judiciary," said Soper.

"So I think Hipkins should get his story right."