A political scientist at Acadia University who studied the NL political landscape for years, says cabinet ministers who draw negative attention inevitably get removed by government.

Alex Marland was responding to comments from Environment Minister Andrea Barbour who accused the media of “twisting” the facts after months of laying low despite repeated media requests.

Premier Tony Wakeham defended his minister, saying he and his cabinet ministers are available to media “when they have something to tell them.”

Minister Barbour told reporters in the House of Assembly last week that she declined media requests because she is still relatively new to the role and wanted to stay in the legislature to learn the process.

Marland says cabinet ministers, especially those who are newly elected, get lots of media training, and while not everyone is comfortable with the process, government typically doesn’t tolerate it for long.

“If you end up becoming what they call a distraction , if you end up being the story about your communications, what ends up happening is you aren’t going to be as accessible to media because the Premier’s Office is not going to want that. And then more than that, you’re going to eventually get demoted to lesser and lesser roles in cabinet and probably out of cabinet altogether. So, you get a number of tries at this, but eventually the government just doesn’t tolerate it.”