John MacDonald: PM didn't do new Police Minister any favours

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

Whenever in the past I’ve been in positions that have involved hiring staff I’ve always known that, when you decide to appoint someone, you need to know clearly in your head why you’re appointing them and what it is about them that makes them the best person for the job.

You do that for a couple of reasons. Firstly, just to double-check your thinking and to make sure that the person you think is the best person for the role, actually is.

The other reason you need to be very clear why you’re appointing them and what makes them the best person for the job, is that you have to sell that person to all the other people not involved in the hiring process.

The people who might raise an eyebrow or two if they think you’ve made the wrong call. Or don't understand and appreciate why you’ve made that call.

So you go through a process and you get to a point where you know who it is you want doing that particular job.

Not that it always works out. I remember hiring someone once and getting an anonymous letter from someone saying they couldn’t believe I had hired this person because they were bad news.

Which made me feel really good. And guess what? They were bad news and I suppose you could say that I really cocked that one up.

I mention this just to show that I know a thing or two about appointing people into roles. And how it is so important to A. not cock-up it up (and I’ve just admitted to cocking up on one occasion), and B. making sure you’re in a position to sell that person and demonstrate why they’re the best person for the job.

We’re yet to see whether Chris Hipkins has cocked-up by appointing Ginny Andersen to the role of Police Minister - just seven weeks after becoming a Cabinet Minister in the first place. Only time will tell on that front.

But what he did make a shambles of yesterday was the “selling” bit. When he announced the appointment he said she was “very well suited” to be Police Minister. Here’s a direct quote: “She worked for the police for 10 years and has experience working there.”

Which sounded like the start of a ringing endorsement. It sounded like the start of what I was talking about earlier - the bit where you have to sell the person you’re appointing to those not involved in the appointment process.

But it wasn’t the start of anything. That was it. That was all the Prime Minister could say about the relevant experience that Ginny Andersen is bringing to her new job as Police Minister.

He couldn’t recall the exact details of what she did at the Police, but he knew she was a civilian staff member - not a sworn officer.

Then he went away and put out a statement with a bit more intel on Ginny Andersen’s police background and relevant experience - which seems to have focused in the policy areas.

So it was all a bit ham-fisted the way the Prime Minister went about things yesterday and I thought Chris Cahill from the Police Association actually did a much better job of selling Ginny Andersen as Police Minister when he spoke on Newstalk ZB this morning.

He also said the new minister had already been on the phone to get his views on the biggest issues that need to be addressed when it comes to crime and policing. And he sounded to me like he’s willing to let her prove herself.

And that’s where I’m at on this one too. Yes, the Prime Minister could have done a much better job selling Ginny Andersen to us. I mean, it was ridiculous he couldn’t say right at the start what she’d done at the Police. So he screwed up the sell-job.

And what that did, is it got all the political crusties tied up in knots saying the Government has shown it isn’t taking crime seriously. And everyone was quick to say that she’ll be no match for National’s Police spokesperson Mark Mitchell. And that may very well be the case. But do we really measure someone on the amount of noise they make?

Haven’t we learnt anything from the last week? Have all the old crusties forgotten about all the appendage-swinging we saw from the last Police Minister and where that got us? Which Mark Mitchell himself isn’t shy of either, is he? At times, he’s chief appendage swinger. And I think old Nashy had a bit of appendage-swinging envy last week when he had the brain explosion live on radio.

So I say give Ginny Andersen a go. Because she might just surprise us.

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