I don’t understand why Chris Hipkins didn’t just fire Stuart Nash from all of his portfolios yesterday.

He should’ve. 

I have not seen anyone else defending Nash, every single commentator I've seen and heard on the radio and in the papers this morning has said the same thing: He’s got to lose all the portfolios. 

When he breached the cabinet manual he didn’t breach it as Police Minister, he breached it as a Minister. No Minister should call the police commissioner. No Minister should have a crack at judges.

Absolutely it’s not okay for the Police Minister to take a crack at a judge, but it’s also not okay for the Fisheries Minister. Or the Forestry Minister. Or the Economic Development Minister, all of which he is.

Because all Ministers have power and that power can’t be used to try to influence judges.

Sacking him altogether would’ve been the easy option, that way the story would be over in a day. But instead, Chippy’s defending him for a second day, and if this drags into tomorrow, a third day.

It’s possible that he’s saving him because he needs a warm body; he needs Nash to fill a space around the Cabinet table. Labour is short on experienced Ministers, and if Nash is gone they’re going to have to promote someone green.

Maybe it’s because he’s to the right of the party and appeals to centre right voters; the very voters Chippy is trying to win over.

Maybe he thought he could just white-knuckle this for a few days and it would go away.

But that’s a risk.

Already we’ve had an unexpected twist today, finding out that Nash had already been formally reprimanded for doing this once before, back in 2020. And the opposition will not let this go easily. The Nats and Act will try milk this for days. Not only this error, but future ones too, and Nash makes a lot of errors.

There’s a reason why on this show we had a segment for a while called ‘Nash Facts,’ and it’s because it was often the case that when he went on Politics Wednesday with Mike in the morning, he would reel off complete inaccuracies as if they were fact.

I don’t know why Chippy didn’t just sack him altogether yesterday, but he should have. And, depending on what happens between now and October, he might end up wishing he did.