Wow - there's a lot of sour grapes growing in this thread.

The proof of that is that most of the whining is about absolute trivia or matters of little consequence.

National could have abolished the Minister of racing portfolio, but chose not to.  Who cares?  (not me).

TPP has changed. In particular the US is out, along with the IP provisions to favour US Pharmaceutical interests - that was the part of TPP that bothered me most.  Not that I expect much from it to help NZ anyway, as Canada won't suddenly allow NZ dairy imports, Japan won't be buying our beef in bulk, and Australia will probably continue to find ways to not buy our apples. The main benefit to NZ may be if the Trump administration goes completely off the rails and starts trade wars - in which case we'll at least have some formal agreements with many of his enemies - which is a much better idea than sucking up to the orange emperor.

National promised to build bridges that were never built, in fact IIRC they took pains to insist that it wasn't a by election bribe when it surely seemed to be, then cynically failed to deliver when they lost.

If you harvest trees to build houses, then you can either replant, or choose not to replant. Suggesting that the minister isn't aware that trees take time to grow - and trying to score political points from that assertion - is plain stupid. Not that it's probably a big deal in terms of value to the industry in NZ, as most of the timber I see leaving the port closest to me is unprocessed logs heading for China.  I guess some increased demand locally won't make much of a dent in that.