Being a government minister is harder than it looks. Parliament is a tough master of its governments. This week a clutch of ministers made mea culpas, and one is learning fast just how hard it can be.
I suspect opposition MPs and politics watchers sometimes observe government ministers and think - 'well, that looks like a doddle'. From observation, the job mostly involves finding ways of avoiding questions about the role.
But a minister's job is full of fish hooks, made worse because ministers essentially work inside a fish bowl owned by Parliament. And to strain that metaphor to its breaking point, those hooks are hard to remove if you don't remove them quickly.
New and returning ministers have been learning (and remembering) this early on in this government.
Christopher Luxon and Mark Mitchell when they were in opposition. This week both walked back statements made to the House.
Misleading the House
The easiest hook to remove is one barbed with Parliament's dislike of falsehood. The House does not take well to Ministers who mis-speak, offer alternative facts, employ terminological inexactitudes; or just plain get the facts wrong.
A minister misleading the House is considered a breach of privilege, which is very naughty indeed. However, the breach must be intentional and accusations of such intention can be avoided if a minister follows protocol and corrects mistakes 'at the earliest opportunity'.
So three times on Wednesday alone government ministers interrupted business in the House to correct errors.
They do that by asking permission (seeking leave) to make a personal statement.
Minister for Police Mark Mitchell got his mea culpa in early. It was a good tactic to pre-empt impending questions which would have been embarrassing.
He didn't exactly admit an error either. "I should have been clearer" was Mark Mitchell's euphemism for admitting that either he had been wrong, or had changed his mind. It wasn't clear which.
James Shaw caused the Prime Minister difficulties over our genocide responsibilities.
Later on, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon attempted to extricate himself from a tangle James Shaw had left him in over whether the ICJ's opinion of a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza "would trigger New Zealand's obligations under article 1 of the to take action to prevent genocide before it occurs."…