The Hewitson Profile: Paul Goldsmith’s political turnaround: From losing seats to managing five key ministries
The Minister for Everything, Paul Goldsmith, is being uncharacteristically, annoyingly and, quite possibly, deliberately boring. In other words he is being a minister. You would not put it past him to be playing at being a caricature of a minister. Just to be annoying. He is very good at being annoying – he enjoys it, you suspect. He manages to be boring and mischievous at the same time. He has a lively sense of fun.
Except when he’s being boring. For example – he gets only one otherwise we’ll all nod off – when asked about ambition, he says: “Well, I don’t know really what the right answer is to that. I’m ambitious for the country.”
He waffles on about how his goal was always to be a senior minister in a “government that makes a difference and improves the lives of New Zealanders”. A snorting sound may have been heard. Had he heard it, too? “Yes, I did. I wondered what that was.” It was accidentally made. “Of course.”
This is the point where I say, “Right. That’s it. I’ve had enough of the waffle.”
There are not too many senior ministers you could imagine saying this to. They’d take umbrage. You are supposed to take ministers seriously. They take themselves seriously and can go po-faced and pompous at the drop of a hat. They become sales people for their party. And he has always been what you might call obedient to a fault to his party.
But Goldsmith, try as he might, is unable to take himself too seriously. He just laughs with delight at me telling him to cut the waffle. He is innately good-natured, I think. I already knew this.
This is boring but if he’s going to be called the Minister for Everything, there had better be a list of his portfolios: he is Minister of Justice, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and Minister for Media and Communications. I may have just out-bored him.
Is he the Minister for Everything? “Not at all, but I’ve got a reasonable variety of things to do, certainly. I’m not going to die of boredom.”
I was the one in danger of dying of boredom. That was a joke. Truly.
He likes jokes. I had one for him and it is that he might be said to be polygamous when it comes to portfolios. Is that funny? “Vaguely.” Well, it made me laugh. “That’s all that matters,” he said, hardly condescendingly at all. If his sense of humour was a cracker, it would be a crispbread.