Kick him to touch

It looks like John Key is going to have to have a cabinet re-shuffle.

I have already blogged on this and note I have already called for David Carter’s useless carcass to be flayed.

It should now be booted out the back door after an appalling lack of judgement on his part in ignoring the religious beliefs of one people over the trade interests of another group, ironically with similar religious beliefs around the killing of animals. Not only that he was horribly conflicted in making the decision.

A farming company part-owned by a Cabinet minister was able to give him a briefing about how the Government could protect its lucrative trade with Muslim countries by banning Jewish slaughtering. (shechita)

Agriculture Minister David Carter supported the recommended law change but had to back down days before he was to be taken to court to justify it.

It is the second time this year Crown lawyers have had to leap to the defence of one of Parliament’s wealthiest MPs – and this time in a case in which he was forced to admit getting basic facts wrong.

Carter was being sued by the Auckland Hebrew Congregation for changing the law in May to make traditional Jewish slaughter of animals illegal. The case was set to begin in the High Court at Wellington tomorrow – until an embarrassing backdown by Carter who on Friday overturned the ban he asked Cabinet to support.

Clearly Carter hasn’t passed around the blank envelope, his usual method of hushing up people, because people are squawking.

He has had far too many close shaves and this must surely be the final straw.

Questions surely must be being asked too about the ongoing management inside the Key ministry. These types of woeful decisions-making were nipped in the bud by the over-arching control of chief of staff heather Simpson in the Clark ministry. There appears no such controls from the 9th floor under National.

It would seem that ministers under Key are operating in silos, with little or no co-operation with each other. This may well be fine in the corporate sector where talent is spectacularly rewarded and incompetence punished swiftly. It isn’t the same in politics, where the talent pool is car park puddle shallow and getting rid of the idiots and fools not as simple as handing them a rubbish bag and showing them the door.

With Wong, and Simon Power and now Carter seemingly operating willy-nilly with no controls it would point out clearly that something isn’t right in the Beehive. Hell, Simon Power even went and did a deal with Labour to rob us of our freedoms and didn’t even put it to caucus first, at least Labour’s caucus got a say in the deal.

National needs to seriously start looking at its leadership and finding some strength otherwise its jelly like spine may well collapse under the strain. Maybe John Key needs to perform his own shechita on some of his more inept and foolish ministers. I’d cut Simon Power‘s throat sooner rather than later before he costs National the election.