Thursday 27 July 2023

"...the real problem Kiri Allan shares with many other ministers in Chris Hipkins’ lack-lustre government"


"While sympathetic journalists weep over Kiri Allan’s mental health woes and her manifold romantic troubles, everyone overlooks the real problem she shares with many other ministers in Chris Hipkins’ lack-lustre government – insufficient experience of real life."
~ Michael Bassett, from his post 'Chippy's chickens fly the coop'

3 comments:

MarkT said...

I agree with the quote - " insufficient experience of real life" is the main problem.

However reading the rest of his article, he's not really talking about real life experience, but insufficient political experience. Even a lifetime of political experience doesn't make you experienced in real life, if anything it makes you less so.

Peter Cresswell said...

Aye, agree.

Bassett's own big problem is *his* lack of real outside-politics experience. It's a real blindspot.

MarkT said...

I'd say at best he's partly right. For instance when he said that when he was a Minister, he knew that getting the funding approved for something was not enough to achieve a result, and that he also had to monitor carefully what the departments were doing rather than just assume it was going to happen. That's certainly been a particular weakness of this government. But I'd still posit that this is a 'real life' skill that successful people in the private sector must learn, but not necessarily required to be 'successful' in politics.