John Armstrong: Too feisty for his own good

Here's some advice for the pugnacious David Benson-Pope: attack is not always the best form of defence, especially when you are trying to shed accusations you were a bully as a teacher.

But then the Cabinet minister from Dunedin is sometimes his own worst enemy, a trait that has not gone unnoticed in the Beehive.

Given the somewhat inconclusive police inquiry into allegations that he assaulted pupils while teaching at Dunedin's Bayfield High School in the 1980s, he might have kept his head down, even if he is indignant at the police finding there is a prima facie case to answer.

Benson-Pope may be no bully. But he is definitely a bulldog. He lashed out, describing the police language as a "bit bozo-ish". He then tried to redefine the meaning of "prima facie" as nothing more than someone merely laying a complaint when it actually means there is evidence to suggest something did happen.

Worse was his lunching with John Cleese in the Beehive when he should have been answering questions next door in Parliament.

Benson-Pope is not the first Cabinet minister to duck the House when things get difficult.

But most have the decency to be embarrassed by it. However, his absence was not solely his decision.

Labour strategists decided it was better that he not be in the firing line when Act's Rodney Hide and National's Judith Collins got their first chance to question him after last week's police announcement that there was a prima facie case, although they would not be prosecuting the minister.

Labour was aware that the subsequent release of the full police report of the inquiry - which should occur next week - would give Hide and Collins a further chance to blast Benson-Pope. Why give his tormentors two free hits?

However, Labour wanted to keep Benson-Pope out of the House in case he said something that was out of step with what is in the police report. The precaution was understandable.

Although he was aware that Hide and TV3 were digging over his past, Benson-Pope failed to have a suitably carefully worded statement on hand when the allegations about tennis balls and sticky tape first surfaced in Parliament in May.

His seeming off-the-cuff outright rejection of the accusations carried the risk of coming back to bite him. It may still.

But those who have seen the police report say 26 former pupils were interviewed, 16 of whom said the alleged incidents never happened or whose recollection is extremely hazy. Only nine witnessed incidents and their accounts are described as "highly variable".

The view in the Beehive is that the report will show the police set a very low threshold for declaring there was a prima facie case and that Benson-Pope would have been easily cleared of any wrongdoing had the police prosecuted - all of which he will likely stress when he finally fronts in Parliament next week.

Despite the advance spin, Benson-Pope's problem is that attention is bound to focus on aspects of the report which are unfavourable to him.

That will highlight the two questions still hovering over him. Should he remain a Cabinet minister? And - given he has no intention of quitting - will his staying on make him a political liability?

The police report may be too weak to force his resignation on the grounds of his failing to meet the standards expected of a Cabinet minister.

Unfortunately for Benson-Pope, he is still in an unsatisfactory limbo because of the police determining there is a prima facie case, rather than declaring there was no basis to the allegations.

The police concluded that two key incidents, including the infamous jamming of a tennis ball into a pupil's mouth, could have happened. But that does not mean they definitely happened.

Does that uncertainty still place him under a cloud so that, while not forced to go, he is still morally obliged to resign?

That might be best answered by harking back to John Tamihere's downfall, especially as claims are already being made of differing standards being applied to Maori ministers and Clark "favourites" such as Benson-Pope.

Tamihere was sacked for accepting a payment he said he would not take.

In contrast, Benson-Pope utterly rejects the claims made against him and the police decision not to prosecute means they remain unproven.

As with Tamihere, the Prime Minister would have to have made a judgment call - one that was considerably easier in the current case given the absence of any groundswell of public opinion for Benson-Pope to be dumped.

But part of the consideration in him staying would have been whether he can still do his job effectively.

The immediate worry for Labour was that the police report might contain damaging information which would have seen him up before Parliament's privileges committee.

Hide argues that the existence of a prima facie case means Benson-Pope misled Parliament when he rubbished the allegations as "ridiculous" after they first surfaced.

However, the Speaker has already ruled against referring the matter to the privileges committee.

The report's contents would have to seriously compromise Benson-Pope for the matter to be reopened.

Benson-Pope is still vulnerable in the House. As Social Development Minister, he has overall responsibility for the safety of children.

That permits the Opposition to keep questioning him about his behaviour as a teacher, which it could not do if he held a different portfolio.

But if National thinks he could turn out to be the new George Hawkins, it is dreaming.

Hawkins plodded along in police and a few other smaller portfolios.

A former chief whip, Benson-Pope was marked out early on for higher things. Since becoming a member of the Cabinet, he has moved swiftly into senior roles.

As a minister, he is very much in the Bill Birch mould - someone who can defuse an issue, sort things out to most people's satisfaction and then move on to the next problem.

Every Government needs such hard-headed operators.

His elevation into the vast and complex Social Development portfolio previously held by Steve Maharey was a vote of confidence by Helen Clark.

Labour will hope that he has heeded some lessons from his experience of recent months. But that does not seem to be the case.

He is abrasive. He has an acid tongue. His style is to get the verbal punches in first. And maybe it is always going to be.