Goff was effectively selected over the heads of the party and the caucus as a whole by the outgoing cabinet, which delivered a fait accompli via cabinet solidarity.
He would have won a contested ballot, but the contest would have engaged the media and given him a three-dimensional profile which he never really achieved.
As he contests the Auckland mayoralty, people are getting to know him in ways that simply didn't happen when he was Labour Party leader. He's interesting, he's funny and he's grounded.
Though we are told that John Key intends to lead his party into next year's general election, nobody hangs around forever and he has been developing his overseas interests by accepting the chairmanship of the International Democrat Union (IDU), an international alliance of right-wing political parties headquartered in Oslo, Norway.
You can bet that he'll be looking at a job on the international stage in the fullness of time, just like his predecessor Helen Clark.
So who comes next when Key moves on? One obvious contender, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bill English, is ruled out on the grounds that he led National to an all-time low of 20 per cent of the party vote in the 2002 general election.
My personal opinion is that nobody would have done any better leading National in that year, but English will not be in contention when the vacancy happens.
The widely accepted potential successors to Key are women, Judith Collins and Paula Bennett, and both featured in the cut and thrust of politics this week.
Since her return to Cabinet as Corrections and Police Minister, Collins has softened her image, smiles a lot more and is making some real strides in the penal reform field.
This week Collins made a major announcement, which was largely lost in the media din, around funding to help offenders with mental health issues.
If you visit jails on a regular basis as I do, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that jails have become dumping grounds for many people who 50 years ago would have been in one of our now largely closed mental institutions.
A Corrections research paper found that prisoners have high rates of mental health and substance abuse disorders.
This report found that 62 per cent of prisoners had some form of mental health or substance abuse illness in the last year, and 20 per cent had both of these disorders. Mostly these were undetected and therefore untreated.
In what was a tight Budget, Collins has scored nearly $14 million to help offenders with mental health issues.
Most of the new money, $10 million, goes into mental health professionals who will work with offenders in jails and in the community, and there will be increased access to mental health services in the jails.
Smaller sums will go on supported accommodation, social workers and counsellors supporting female offenders, and wrap-around post-release services for prisoners and their families with multiple mental health needs.
In a nearly billion-dollar Corrections budget these are not huge sums, but the symbolism is crucial.
Rather than the "lock them up and throw away the key approach", which has dogged penal policy, what we see here is an evidence-based approach aimed at striking at the underlying causes of repeat offending.
Collins had a good week, but my other contender as Key's successor had a shocker of a week.
Bennett, having surprised English with her offer of $5000 for homeless people to leave Auckland, was embroiled in a "dirty tricks" bout when a member of her office staff leaked some negative "facts" about the head of a Mangere marae which generously opened its doors to the growing legion of homeless Aucklanders.
This episode spoke volumes about the atmosphere in Bennett's ministerial office, and will not have advanced her ambitions.
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
