Given that they're more meddlers than they are emancipators, here's my list of my favourite current Government ministers -- based entirely on the Taxpayers Union's list of "how many cabinet papers each Minister had submitted to Cabinet or a Cabinet Committee since they were sworn in." The more papers submitted, the more they reveal themselves as those who most want to push and shove you around. (The number of times their papers were ever read seriously is not recorded.)
Hat tip for the list goes to Dave Farrar who, for some reason, calls the most meddling ministers "productive"! Clearly, he and I operate on a very different standard of judgement.
So, here they, ranked in order, the laziest ministers in the current cabinet -- which, given what they could be doing if they were motivated, makes them my favourites (the number in brackets refers to the number of cabinet papers they've submitted). The top ten confirm themselves* as eminently re-electable:
- Marama Davidson (0)
- Phil Twyford (0)
- Willie Jackson (1)
- Priyanca Radhakrishnan (1)
- Kiri Allan (1)
- Aupito William Sio (2)
- Kelvin Davis (3)
- Jan Tinetti (5)
- Dr Ayesha Verrall (6)
- Jacinda Ardern (7)
- Peeni Henare (7)
- James Shaw (7)
- Poto Williams (8)
- Damien O'Connor (9)
- Meka Whaitiri (10)
- Stuart Nash (11)
- Megan Woods (12)
- Nanaia Mahuta (13)
- Carmel Sepuloni (14)
- David Clark (15)
- Kris Faafoi (17)
- Grant Robertson (20)
- Michael Wood (23)
- Andrew Little (23)
- David Parker (31)
- Chris Hipkins (41)
So it seems pretty clear: the most dangerous ministers in the current cabinet are the young and eager Wood and Hipkins, and the older, wiser and more devious Parker, Little, Faafoi and Robertson.
Whereas the ones doing what we want most, i.e., nothing, are heroes like Marama Davidson, Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Apuito William Sio, Kelvin Davis and Willie Jackson. Galt save them all.
* Please note that the virtue of all the top ten can't be completely confirmed. True, Phil Twyford has apparently been granted leave to care for his sick wife, but his previous bumbling and inertia does confirms him as one with a ministerial career to savour. Whereas, before her own illness, Kiri Allen was beginning to look like a small bundle of focussed energy, which was concerning. That said, as the only one in cabinet medically qualified to consult on Covid, Dr Ayesha Verrall's six papers on the subject suggest more measures should be considered about their employability than simply the number of papers they've written. But it's a start, right?
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