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Mike's Minute: Shane Jones saga exposes PM's weakness again

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Mon, 9 Mar 2020, 9:44AM

Mike's Minute: Shane Jones saga exposes PM's weakness again

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Mon, 9 Mar 2020, 9:44AM

The Prime Minister made a very grave mistake in an interview with Indian media on Friday. 

They, obviously, put the Shane Jones saga to her and asked her why she was allowing casual racism to fester at the highest levels of government. Fair question.

Her answer was for the voter not to punish her, for the voter to work out who has the power to form governments, and it's within your power to decide what you make of those comments.

Yes it is, and the inference is clear. But what's also clear is we have it in our power to work out whether we want a leader with no backbone, whether we want a leader who time and time again fails to make clear and obvious leadership decisions, and whether we want a leader who clearly is either too scared to be bold, or too afraid that her government will implode if she acts in a way the vast majority of us would under normal circumstances expect.

The answer is classic Ardern. You could put it in the dictionary. "An Ardern" is is when you make some noise but say nothing, when your answer is not an answer at all.

Shane Jones and Winston Peters arguably, could have, should have, both been stood down. But they haven't been, and they haven't been because the person who could do it, is incapable of owning hard calls.

It not only makes her look weak it makes Peters and Jones look in charge, it hands them the power. It’s the lesson of the school yard, if you don’t stand up to the bully, the bully keeps bullying.

Jones has a number of verbal indiscretions now, and each time we see the farcical scene where Ardern puts on her best stern face and tells us she's had a word.

It's happened so often now it’s a joke, the savaging of the wet bus ticket.

Peters, of course, is vastly more serious. And when it happened previously he did stand down, and that's because if he didn’t, he would have been sacked by Helen Clark who, say what you want about her, knew how to actually lead.

So when Ardern tries yet again to sidestep a question by "handing the power to the people," as we ask whether Jones and his tongue should be allowed another crack, we also ask the value of a leader who doesn’t lead, can't lead, is scared of leading, fails to hold those under her watch to account.

If we had a decisive leader, we wouldn't need to ask the question about Jones because there wouldn't be a question because it would have been taken care of.

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