Herbert's Hubris...

From where I sit, it is grossly insufficient for the Prime Minister to simply disassociate herself from the disparaging statements made by Justice Minister Herbert Volney against the Chief Justice  during the Budget debate.  That it has been taken by many in the legal profession to be an outright attack on the Office of the Chief Justice, much sterner action needs to be taken to heal the breech caused by his ill timed words.

Whether he perceives there to be merit in his position or not is not in question here, but rather an issue of time and place. It is quite clear that his Judicial autonomy has not translated well to the team sport that is Parliamentary Government, and he may need to be removed from the Cabinet.

Were this his first transgression at over-talking his presumed authority, one could chance reprimand and apology over him being summarily dismissed; but the sheer size of his folly leaves the Government little room to backpedal and a much larger signal needs to be sent. The irony is that, as a former Judge he would know only too well the benefits of sending a strong message to others who might otherwise make the same mistake, so selling his dismissal to him should not be that hard.

This continuous foot in mouth disease is not going to go away anytime soon, and professional team coaches need to be hired by the Government to replace the spin doctors currently being used after the fact. The gaffs and faux pas being made on a daily basis by members of the coalition are an obvious result of the hastily assembled entity trying to morph into one creature, and many more retreats as well as other team building exercises may be necessary if they are to assimilate into a more cohesive team.

That said, there should be no more room for these loose canons and wild cards in our politics, and no quarter should be given to those who would make a mockery of our highest institutions by their grandstanding behavior.