Learning to Minister, and a crucial skill

New MPs spend years learning the many, varied skills required for their roles. Having demonstrated proficiency as an MP some are appointed a minister, and begin learning all over again.

Ministers require an entirely different set of skills. 

It’s akin to being selected as the Black Cap’s wicket keeper because you’ve proven a really good spin bowler. And there’s not really a warm-up, so you just pull on the gloves. 

The brand new minister

In the recent cabinet shuffle Labour’s Chief Whip Kieran McAnulty got the nod to become a minister outside cabinet. A week later he was sitting in committee for an Estimates Hearing, defending the budget plan for Emergency Management. It wasn’t his budget plan, but now they’re his people.  

You might imagine incoming ministers get lots of warning, to study and gird their loins. They don’t. If that had been the case Kieran McAnulty wouldn’t have chosen that week to move house.

Kieran McAnulty is now minister for Emergency Management, for Racing, the Deputy Leader of the House and Associate Minister of both Local Government and Transport. Associate Ministers generally get specific roles inside the wider portfolio. 
That’s like taking on five new jobs at once. But it’s more than that, it’s a change from effectively working for Parliament to working for the Government. 

You can hear his description of the sudden shift in perspective, in rules and skills at the audio link above.

Ministers do have advisors and experts, and receive briefings from their precursors, but it’s still a huge leap to multiple new and difficult skills. 

New MPs get inductions and some training, and then party-driven mentoring. You would hope new ministers are given similar help but on a much larger scale - they are running the country, we probably want that to go well.  

The crucial skill for apparent success 

There is one skill crucial to a minister. Answering questions. It’s a skill that is difficult to prepare for. Backbench MPs get lots of practice in asking questions (occasionally in the House, frequently in committee), but they never get to answer them. 

Answering oral questions is possibly the oddest part of a ministerial role. It’s a tiny part of the job but crucial to apparent success.

A minister might be brilliant at policy development, at management, delegating and overseeing multiple projects and multiple departments, and at getting money approved …but public perception will determine they are failing if they get monstered at Question Time.

It’s a strange way to mark success because Question Time’s interactions aren’t particularly ‘real’. Instead Question Time is a kind of theatre and doing it well involves a degree of performance, but not all MPs are naturals at that.

It’s not about the facts 

To make matters worse, showing weakness can make a minister (and their areas of responsibility) into opposition targets – whether or not there is good ammunition to assist in that targeting. 

Politics will just as happily target an individual as target a policy area; in fact targeting an individual is simpler. A weak defender is easier for the public to identify and label than a weak defence. Judging the strength of a factual defence requires knowledge, but anyone can spot an unconfident answer and interpret that as weakness or evidence of perfidious behaviour. ‘He is obviously hiding something, look how nervous he is.’

Defence is a losing position

For a couple of months the National Party spokesperson on justice, Mark Mitchel has been enjoying Question Time and getting lots of opportunities. 

His focus has been questions to the previous Minister of Police regarding gangs and crime. His questions have often been pretty identical from day to day and week to week, but they worked well enough so he kept returning to the well.

The answers to them have tended to be pre-prepared and often read, not delivered or even performed. They have been solid enough answers but the performative confidence was on the other side of the equation.

And so the increasing perception was not just that the Minister was not a natural at Question Time, but that the policy area was failing. This may not be logical or even fair, but logic and fairness hold little sway in psychology or politics (or sport).

If a nervous batsman blocks every delivery from a questing bowler (regardless of each ball’s accuracy), their defensive posture only draws the field in closer until catchers are clustered around taunting them at every ball. They make the bowler look good and themselves poor.

Question Time is a confidence event like many sports. If one side of the contest can excite their colleagues or cow their opponents the contest is half won. 

Consequently, there was a recent change in the batting line-up and a new Minister of Police.

The demonstration

In the House on Wednesday the Opposition asked its first questions of the newly minted Minister of Police, Chris Hipkins. 

Mr Mitchell’s previous outings had been cheered on by opposition MPs in rowdy confidence. This week was a test of whether that success would hold with a new batsman.

You can hear the full first exchange in the second half of the audio story at the top of this article, it is worth a listen. 

The short version is that the roles were quickly reversed and the new Minister took the ascendency and rather overmatched the opposition spokesperson.  

To stick with the metaphor: the new batsman rejected the cautious, prepared response and instead dispatched the previously triumphal bowler’s deliveries over the boundary, repeatedly. 

Half-way through the exchange Mark Mitchell received some friendly fire from his colleague Michael Woodhouse who, presuming the ascendancy, cheekily lobbied for Mitchell to be allowed extra follow-up questions. The Speaker agreed.

With extra opportunities in hand and with possibly ebbing confidence Mark Mitchell was unable to think of any fresh queries so retreated to repeating two questions he had already asked, and which had already been slapped down. 

“He’s very quick on his feet that one,” Chris Hipkins quipped while answering. 

“Was it something about deja vu revisited” suggested the Speaker, and then offered Mark Mitchell two further supplementary questions, to which the House collapsed in laughter and applause.

The whole exchange was a marked change in mood from recent encounters.

National had previously sensed a wicket and clustered around the batsman cheering on the bowler, now they were retreating to the boundaries while governing party MPs cheered on the pinch hitter.  

Confidence in an unchanged position

The really crucial thing to note is that, since the previous encounters in the House on the same topic there has been no change in policy, or in outcomes. Nothing is new in crime rates. Nothing is new in funding or in police operational parameters. 

The questions are even pretty similar to those asked before.

In fact, the answers were also very similar. The largest difference was performative; it was confidence and energy. 

Chris Hipkins poured confidence into the exchange so as to alter the wider House’s expectations on this topic, and he got in on the contest early. On Tuesday (a day earlier than their Question Time exchange), he dared Mark Mitchell to ask follow-ups to some patsy questions on Police. “Come on Mark” he called. He might as well have shouted “chicken”. 

When Mark Mitchell stood up on Wednesday to grill him Chris Hipkins loudly called out “at last”, and was chided by the Speaker for the interjection. It was for the same effect, a batsman trying to unsettle the bowler pre-delivery.

The reason for recounting this whole encounter is to illustrate the crucial importance to any minister of that tiniest skill in their repertoire - answering questions. A skill you only get to practice AFTER becoming a minister. 

Every Minister gets asked questions. Answering them well is obviously not easy.

It has very little to do with performing their ministerial duties well, but everything to do with performing and if they get it right they will likely also be presumed to be effectively performing their duties.