KEY POINTS:
Labour has come out swinging at National Party leader John Key, criticising his stance on the Iraq war and questioning how he could have sympathy for first-home buyers when he used two sections to build a mansion in Parnell.
The multi-pronged and personal attack came as Labour sensed
Mr Key was coming under pressure for the first time as leader.
Mr Key - fresh from National's annual conference which would usually be expected to put him on the front foot - did little more than shake his head and occasionally grin his way through the torture.
Top of Labour's list was the National leader's position on Iraq, which Defence Minister Phil Goff questioned by drawing on two stories published in the Rodney Times newspaper in February and March 2003.
At the time the stories ran Bill English was National's leader and Mr Key was a local area MP for Helensville, sitting on the backbench with seven to eight months' experience in Parliament.
The first story stated that Mr Key and Rodney MP Lockwood Smith could support a war against Iraq without United Nations' support, and carried a paragraph indirectly quoting Mr Key as being "prepared to commit any support requested by the United States for a war against Iraq, including SAS and combat troops".
The second story carried a direct quote in which Mr Key said "blood is thicker than water and we should stick with the family which has supported us in the past", in reference to traditional allies the United States, Britain and Australia.
Mr Goff contrasted the reports with statements by Mr Key that National had supported the Coalition of the Willing's right to send troops to Iraq, but wouldn't have done so itself.
"I think that about 90 per cent of New Zealanders are very relieved that that decision was on the judgment of a Labour-led Government, and that National wasn't in power to exercise Mr Key's very poor judgment," Mr Goff said in the House.
National's position in 2003 on whether New Zealand should be involved in the war in Iraq eventually saw it support the United States, parting ways with Prime Minister Helen Clark, who opposed going into Iraq without United Nations' sanction.
A spokesman for Mr Key last night said the Helensville MP had been reflecting the position of his caucus at the time the articles were written.
There was also ridicule over Mr Key's slip of the tongue that he would lead a Labour government, and then ministers drew on his confused statements in the Herald on the establishment of a transtasman regulatory agency for therapeutic products.
Annette King drew parallels between Mr Key's position on supporting the agency and a Dr Seuss children's book: "He said he would and he could, then later he said he couldn't and he wouldn't, and later still he said he couldn't because he wouldn't, and finally he said he didn't because he hadn't."
Then Housing Minister Chris Carter drew on past comments by Mr Key that a proposed development at Hobsonville - which included 15 per cent of homes reserved for first-home owners - was "economic vandalism".
On the National leader's talk that National would free up the supply of land for more houses,
Mr Carter pointed out that Mr Key's "very large mansion in St Stephens Ave in Parnell required two sections to be merged".
