At the end of the first week of Parliament this week, the political stocks of Justice Minister Simon Power are hot - and the stocks of Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee are not.
Mr Brownlee made a procedural blunder on Wednesday night that disrupted the Government's legislativeagenda and left MPs and officials scrambling to change the order of legislation.
The repeal of the Electoral Finance Bill, being sponsored through the house by Mr Power, was set back after Mr Brownlee failed to read the correct words in his motion to get both the first and second stages of the bill done on Thursday.
Mr Power told him he had not read the crucial words "second reading" but audio of the House records Mr Brownlee telling his benchmate he did.
The bill will still be passed next week, probably under urgency.
But the error has refuelled a whispering campaign begun last year - and stirred up by Labour - to replace Mr Brownlee as Leader of the House with Mr Power.
The Leader of the House is responsible for the Government's agenda in Parliament and it is a job that former Labour deputy Michael Cullen held for nine years and exercised with great precision and control. It is also a job that requires a lot of interaction and negotiation with other parties.
Both Mr Brownlee and Mr Power are popular MPs across parties but Mr Power - a former lawyer - is credited with a greater grasp of technical and legal detail.
Mr Power earned considerable cross-party respect for the way he chaired the privileges committee hearing last year into the non-declarations of donations to New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.
Mr Brownlee was unavailable for comment yesterday but a spokesman for him said that looking at the big picture, the Government had achieved a lot in the past week.
