ANALYSIS: Christopher Luxon's own standards have come back to bite him.
When Michael Wood was under fire for his failure to declare shares, Luxon said Wood should have been sacked on day one before any investigation took place. He called the Prime Minister weak.
"The bottom line is Chris Hipkins is weak, he hasn't managed his team and he hasn't managed his culture inside of it," Luxon said at the time.
Whereas when Luxon had his own personnel issues, he waited until he was dealt indisputable facts before taking any action.
The incident with Tim van de Molen took place at the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee in June.
Before kicking it to Parliament's court, the powerful Privileges Committee, Labour wrote to National and asked for action.
Newshub's obtained the email chain.
On June 29, Labour whip Tangi Utikere wrote to National whip Chris Penk and described van de Molen's "aggressive" behaviour towards the Select Committee chair, Labour MP Shanan Halbert.
"It is Shanan's desire for this issue to be resolved in a non-public way, and I would appreciate you following this issue up and outlining any action that may be taken," Utikere wrote.
Almost two weeks later, Penk replied that van de Molen's account "differs in some key respects".
Utikere replied that same day thanking Penk for his "response on this".
Looking at the email chain, perhaps Luxon may be forgiven for thinking in a formal sense the matter had been dealt with.
And that might stand as an excuse had Luxon not held the Prime Minister to a standard of instant sackings for bad behaviour, especially given neither Wood nor Education Minister Jan Tinetti were found in contempt of Parliament for their misgivings.
Luxon now faces a major problem beginning with a capital H - Hypocrisy.
Jenna Lynch is Newshub's Political Editor.
