I don't think the elections are the problem per se. Whether you elect your Cabinet ministers or appoint them, you've still got to find people who are willing and able to do the job properly, and that obviously gets harder the greater number of roles you have.

I also think it's a mistake to view the proposed WA Ministry in isolation. Yes, OWL is active at the moment - probably more so than some of the new ministries - but that isn't an argument for making it a ministry. It's an argument for stepping back and asking whether we really need - or can successfully sustain - so many ministries in the first place.

When we were debating the MoRA split I made the observation that much of the problem seemed to be a lack of engagement, and that the split wouldn't necessarily resolve that. I've seen nothing in the past four months that has caused me to change my view. There are simply not enough active, committed members of the forumside community for TSP to achieve everything it wants to.

At the end of the day we all have real lives and are able to devote varying amounts of time to playing this game in whatever way we want. We need to be realistic about that when setting our expectations.

To conclude, then: let's make this part of a larger conversation about what is realistic and sustainable for the community as a whole, and work from there. Let's not just throw another minister at the Cabinet table because we like the sound of the proposed brief.