But at this rate, pointed out another, with still 50-something days until the election, how many New Zealand MPs would be left standing when the polling booths open?
A possibly unprecedented period of scandal, sackings and sex in New Zealand politics claimed its latest, and perhaps highest profile, casualty yesterday when Labour minister and fourth-term MP Iain Lees-Galloway got the boot.
It all happened very quickly. The dust had barely settled on the Andrew Falloon affair - how quickly his unseemly demise has been relegated to the background — when National Party leader Judith Collins made reference on Tuesday to an unspecified allegation made against a Labour Minister.
By yesterday morning, Mr Lees-Galloway’s name had emerged as the subject. Minutes later, his social media profiles were deleted. The Prime Minister then called a press conference, at which she announced her Immigration Minister had been dismissed after engaging in inappropriate behaviour with a former staffer over a period of 12 months.
His future in the Labour Cabinet was "untenable", and he had "lost my confidence", Jacinda Ardern said.
Mr Lees-Galloway’s failure was a moral, not criminal, issue. But, as the Prime Minister spelled out clearly, a relationship between a minister and a staffer had the potential to be seen as an abuse of power, and could have led to accusations of favouritism.
There will, naturally, be questions raised over who knew what and when. For now, it is time to contemplate the demise of another MP, and the latest chapter in this period of political shenanigans.
Mr Lees-Galloway shaped as a fairly unremarkable, almost harmless member of the Ardern Government. No high flyer, to be fair, but a reasonably solid, mid-ranked politician who had not set the world on fire since being elected in 2008 but who had (mostly) managed to avoid the seriously bad headlines.
His major mis-step came in 2018 when he became embroiled in the Karel Sroubek affair. Having decided to grant residency to the convicted Czech drug smuggler, he was forced to back-track when Sroubek’s chequered past came fully to light, and a review later recommended the Immigration Minister only intervene in deportation cases as a last resort.
Ms Ardern stood by her minister on that occasion, and retained confidence in his performance in the portfolio even as the backlog of applications for permanent residency spiralled to uncomfortable levels, but she had no option yesterday but to remove him.
Politicians are rightly held to account for their actions and their behaviour. They are allowed to have private lives, and Mr Lees-Galloway is neither the first nor the last to engage in an affair. But while immigration is his major portfolio, workplace relations and safety is also on his card. Sniggering aside, a minister who is supposed to set the standard for "workplace relations" simply cannot behave like this.
It continues an extraordinary pre-election period of scandal that has left Mr Lees-Galloway, Mr Falloon, Todd Muller, Hamish Walker - have we missed anyone? - on the scrap heap. Plenty are asking: who is next?
