She said now Luxon had set the tone, he had to keep it up.
That echoed comments by former United Future leader Peter Dunne this week, who noted it was “somewhat easier” for Luxon to sack Lee and Simmonds – given they were National Party ministers.
“It will be a different situation though, should future circumstances involve New Zealand First or ACT ministers. While the ultimate authority about who serves as Ministers lies with the Prime Minister, any decision to demote or dismiss New Zealand First or ACT ministers would have to be handled very deftly and would be reliant on the ultimate agreement of the leaders of those parties,” Dunne wrote in his weekly column.
“The Prime Minister’s credibility would be severely, perhaps irreparably, damaged if he were to attempt or demote ministers from New Zealand First or ACT without agreement from those parties. In this context, it is interesting to compare the treatment of National ministers Lee and Simmonds, with that of New Zealand First minister Casey Costello who arguably caused the Government just as much embarrassment, yet suffered no sanction, over her appalling handling of the smoke-free issue.”
Sherson, meanwhile, hit out at former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who questioned Lee’s replacement Paul Goldsmith due to a hole he left in National’s fiscal plan while he was the party’s finance spokesperson in 2020.
“Can I just say, the chip from Chippy (Hipkins)… I mean, extremely rich from Labour given that that was an on-paper error – we all now know there’s a tens of billions of dollars real hole that Labour left,” Sherson said.
“I did have a little eyeroll at that.”
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