Bob Edlin: Come on, Prime Minister – can’t you drum into the media your focus on merit, not race?

The headlines below illustrate the mainstream media’s fixation with the idea that Maori are getting a raw deal. The implication is that more of them should be Cabinet ministers.

Two of the news reports were generated by our hapless PM’s falling into a trap set by a broadcaster who aimed to embarrass him rather than glean information on behalf of her audience. She succeeded.

Stuff turned what happened into this report:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was asked a straightforward question during a TVNZ Breakfast interview with Tova O’Brien following his Cabinet reshuffle: How many Māori MPs are in the National Party portion of the Cabinet.

In the exchange that followed, Luxon declined to give a number, named an MP who is not in Cabinet, and then appeared to forget Cabinet minister Tama Potaka — while also briefly mixing up names.

Many questions have been raised about the Cabinet announced after Luxon’s reshuffle (or “rebalancing”) a week ago.

O’Brien’s bemusing emphasis was on just one aspect of the Cabinet’s composition:

O’Brien began: “How many Māori MPs are in your Cabinet?”

The answer to that question (if Luxon had been listening and knew the answer) should have been:

*The Cabinet has 20 Ministers, six of them Māori.

* One of these (Tama Potaka) is a National MP.

* There are two Māori MPs from ACT in the Cabinet and three from New Zealand First.

Alas, Luxon opted to play a silly game by the broadcaster’s rules rather than stamp his own authority on proceedings.

Luxon responded: “We’ve probably got the most Māori MPs in our coalition government, I think of any Government.”

“In the National Party wedge of the cabinet, Prime Minister,” O’Brien said, clarifying her question.

“We’ve got a number, but the key thing here is …” Luxon responded.

O’Brien interjects: “What is the number?”

“I don’t need to do that Tova, we’re not going to play that game. What we’re really focusing on …” Luxon replies.

O’Brien presses further: “It’s not a game. How many Māori MPs do you have in the National Party portion of the cabinet? Is it just one?”

But it was a game and he had been lured into playing it, like a guileless tourist being gulled into playing the “three shell game” with a street hustle.

Let’s see how he mishandled things from there.

Luxon: “James Meager. Yep.”

Meager is the National Party MP for Rangitata.

O’Brien then asks: “Is James Meager in the Cabinet now?”

“No, he’s not in Cabinet, he’s one of our ministers,” Luxon said, before pivoting to the reshuffle.

“I just say to you Tova that the point of the cabinet reshuffle is to make sure that we’ve got those big portfolios reallocated. Two, we make sure that we’ve got a big focus on the energy and the fuel crisis, and three, that we’re bringing through talent …”

O’Brien then asks: “Is Tama Potaka not in cabinet?”

“He is in cabinet,” Luxon says. ”Tama is there. Yep. He’s doing a great job.“

O’Brien follows up: “Ok. Did you just forget about him?”

Luxon then stumbles over names while responding: “Uh, sorry, I might of Tama, Tova, Tama yes … Tama does a great job …”

Potaka who holds the Hamilton West seat for National, is currently the Minister in charge of Conservation, Māori Crown Relations, Māori Development, Whānau Ora and is the associate minister for Housing.

Luxon then returned to his broader message about the reshuffle.

“I get what you’re trying to say, but the bigger point here is actually making sure we’ve got the right talent to be able to get on and get the job done. We’ve got great Māori representation in our cabinet across the parties.”

Too late.

Right from the outset he should have told O’Brien his over-riding concern was to appoint ministers on the basis of their talents and abilities, not their race.

Furthermore, he should have insisted his government aims to serve all of New Zealand and does not split the country into Māori bits and non-Māori bits (although too often he has raised doubts about his commitment to this).

Then he could have pointed out that Asians account for almost as much of the population as Māori (or people who identify as Māori).

That would have paved the way to push back and ask if O’Brien was going to question him about why he had no Asians in his Cabinet.

S0 – 30 per cent of the Cabinet are Maori; none are Asian.

If he had taken this line of reasoning further, he might have asked if she wanted to establish how many Hottentots he had appointed?

And how many left-handers?

And how many red heads?

And how many ….

Yes, it soon becomes evident this is a tiresome pursuit.

The PM took part because – as Karl du Fresne has written – he has yet to get to grips with the craft of politics.

What a shame.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.