Tony Wakeham’s first move as premier was to appoint a slimmer and trimmer cabinet, paring the 17 portfolios of the previous Liberal government down to 14.

That includes lumping a number of stand-alone departments, like Women and Gender Equality, into larger and more demanding portfolios.

The move is expected to save NL taxpayers about $400,000 over the next four years.

Dalhousie University political scientist Lori Turnbull says it’s not surprising.

“Oftentimes when a premier or prime minister first starts, their cabinet is small. Usually they will grow it, but if they start it small, it gives them an opportunity to kind of shift things around, if they want to bring somebody in later.”  She says a smaller cabinet makes it look like government is focused on austerity, because a bigger cabinet “is going to make it look like you’re spending a bunch of money and people might not like that. So, this is typically what we see when a premier first starts.”