There was a lot of back patting going on around Parliament which was a little baffling to say the least.
News had just come through that the man who's been an arch nemeses to politicians on both sides of the political spectrum has coughed up a cool forty three million bucks to settle allegations of money laundering, but without accepting any guilt.
The generosity of Chinese businessman Bill Liu is staggering then. He paid the cops all that money to wipe his slate in this country clean, even though he maintains it was clean as a scrubbing board right from the start.
The cops are happy enough, saying the pay cheque's the end of the matter without any admission of criminal or civil liability by Liu, even though he's in the top five on the Chinese most wanted list, as confirmed by John Key when he was in Beijing in April.
Beijing claims Liu stole $129 million through a complex fraud before leaving China in 2001 and laundered the money in this country. SkyCity records show he gambled a mind boggling $293 million over a twelve year period, despite being banned twice for two years and losing a total of $23 million.