Poser with no right answer for Key

David Garrett. Photo / Simon Baker

Whichever way you look at it, John Key handed Phil Goff an absolute gift of an opportunity to give the Prime Minister a verbal lashing in Parliament yesterday.

When Key replied to one of Goff's questions on Rodney Hide's handling of the David Garrett embarrassment by saying the Act leader had "carried out his affairs [as a minister] in a personal and private capacity to a high ethical standard", the Labour leader could scarcely believe his good fortune.

Goff declared the reply had not only stunned Parliament, it had stunned the nation. It had clearly stunned Goff who got so excited he almost tripped over his follow-up question.

But you don't get to where Goff has got in politics by wasting a gilt-edged opportunity like that.

By the time the House had shifted from question-time to the Wednesday afternoon general debate, Goff had rewritten his speech.

Key had left the chamber by then. But his absence was of no consequence to Goff.

The Leader of the Opposition got stuck in mercilessly, saying the PM had to be the only person in the country who believed Hide had behaved in an ethical fashion after he had covered up Garrett's theft of the identity of a dead child to obtain a fraudulent passport.

Key's defence of Hide might have looked like a big blunder. But Key was probably left with little choice after Speaker Lockwood Smith delivered a precedent-setting ruling that the Opposition could seek the Prime Minister's opinion of the judgment of a minister on matters beyond his or her portfolio responsibilities because they might be relevant to the Prime Minister's confidence in that minister.

Previously, questions to the Prime Minister on such matters have been ruled out on the grounds the Prime Minister has no responsibility for what happens in another political party.

That position was established when the Alliance split asunder in 2002, National, then in Opposition, was frustrated it could not put pressure on Helen Clark by seeking her opinion of what was going down within Labour's coalition partner.

On Tuesday, National's Leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee, had argued eloquently and convincingly for the status quo to prevail.

That was not to be. Smith has been utterly transparent in his intention to be a reforming Speaker.

Consequently on the defence yesterday, Key sought to deflect Goff's questions, which were now deemed allowable, by noting the Cabinet Manual clearly stated that ministers were only accountable to him for their ethical behaviour, not for their judgment.

Suddenly Key was trapped. If he said Hide had not upheld the highest ethical standards, he would have had to sack him as a minister immediately.

The Prime Minister's only option was to declare Hide had complied.

The one thing going in Key's favour is that Goff and Labour's follow-up speaker Clayton Cosgrove probably exhausted - at least for now - the opportunity to refer to the anguish Garrett has inflicted on the parents of the "dead baby" who was subject to the identity theft. The "yuk factor" is starting to make itself felt.

What Key will be kicking himself for is handing Goff something with which to ping him during next year's election campaign.