John Armstrong: Got the passport... lost the plot

Act MP David Garrett. Photo / Mark Mitchell

How much more bizarre can Act's rapid disintegration as a functioning political party get?

Yesterday was not so much the Day of the Jackal - the Frederick Forsyth thriller from which Act MP David Garrett took the idea of stealing the identity of a long dead baby to procure a fraudulent passport for himself.

Yesterday was the Day of the Jackass. Or, perhaps, jackasses as Garrett and his leader, Rodney Hide, stumbled around like blind mules in the pitch black trying to find some way out of their party's latest mess.

It was a complete and utter shambles. Garrett spent the afternoon seeking sanctuary in the parliamentary chamber rather than coming out to face the waiting media.

He did scuttle briefly into the Speaker's office, only to scuttle back to the House under the cover of Lockwood Smith helpfully ordering the media out of his corridor in Parliament Buildings.

Hide, meanwhile, was stranded in Hong Kong at his son's 21st birthday celebrations, and had lost his chief press secretary, who walked out of his job earlier in the day.

When deputy leader John Boscawen finally made an appearance around dinner-time, he deferred to a supposed statement that Hide had not issued at that stage.

With regard to Garrett, it is important to be clear what is at issue here. It is not that he did not deserve a second chance in life following his discharge without conviction in 2005 for the identity theft, which happened 26 years ago.

As Hide declared on Monday, Parliament is a House of Representatives, not a House of Saints.

What is in question is the wisdom of making Garrett Act's law and order spokesman when his past was likely to come back to haunt him.

As a minimum, Hide must sack Garrett from that role.

Garrett is now a laughing stock - as was swiftly demonstrated in Parliament yesterday when Labour turned his trademark "three strikes and you're out" policy against him.

What is in even more question is whether Garrett is still fit to be an MP.

His admission to the identity theft as well as his conviction for assault had to be dragged out of him.

When he was asked on Tuesday if there was anything else in his past which warranted mention, he replied that there was nothing other than a few speeding tickets. He made no mention of the identity theft.

Maybe he thought his name suppression in that case meant he could not mention it. Or maybe he thought the suppression order would protect him.

This is not good enough. An MP's words must be able to be trusted. Garrett's have been rendered worthless.

He is now an embarrassment to his party. The decent thing for him to do would be to resign from Act. If he is unwilling to leave Parliament, then he should sit as an independent, giving his Act colleagues at least a chance of recovering from this shambles.

But the looming problem for Act is Hide's complicity in hushing up Garrett's past. It is another black mark against the leader. Hide is standing behind Garrett because he needs his backing to remain leader.

Without Garrett, the dynamics in the Act caucus would change. Hide's value to his colleagues now rests solely on his holding his Epsom seat and carrying them back into Parliament under the threshold-defeating loophole in the Electoral Act - and that is looking more unlikely by the day.

This and the fact Act needs a game-changer, and quickly, is jeopardising Hide's hold on the leadership. Hello John Boscawen. Your party needs you. And not as deputy leader.