In other words, if there's a challenge to the 13-months' leadership of 51-year-old David Cunliffe in the near future, it won't be the 47-year-old adoptive great-grandson of former party leader and 1957-1960 Prime Minister Walter Nash who's leading it.
Asked if he might aspire to it in the "future," he answers: "Politics is a matter of timing."
Phil Goff he reckons, would have made a great Prime Minister, and was primed to succeed Mike Moore until "Helen" suddenly got the votes and won in 1993.
Helen Clark got it when the party was on the way up, even if it was another six years before the party returned to the treasury benches. When Goff got it, he says, the party was on the way down.
He doesn't rule out imminent change in the leadership, for there is another Labour caucus meeting on Tuesday, hopefully not as long as the seven hours it took when he and about 30 other MPs shared the early throes of the Defeat of the Century post mortem last Tuesday. "It will be interesting."
The Labour Party's constitution commands there is a resolution of the leadership within three months of a general election - whether it be reaffirming the current helmsman or installing a replacement.
Whatever it, Stuart Nash does have a dream which has a certain strain of leadership to it.
There are fewer than 100 days until Christmas, by which time he wants his colleagues in the House to go on holiday united, and to come back with strategies as to how Labour will win the election in 2017. "Politics is all about winning."
It's effectively what he told the caucus in a 3-4 minute speech, when he spoke of "the opportunities and challenges" presented to the team, and "the need to create a mood for change" when the nation goes to the polls next time around.
Mr Nash, whose defeats as Labour's fall-guy in Epsom in 2005, the Napier Labour candidate selection nominee three years later, and party Napier candidate in the 2011 election were interposed with a term as a Labour List MP, says "we" made a lot of promises in Napier" and now's the time to keep them.
On the biggie, of local-body amalgamation, he says it is too late to change the law, and Labour doesn't have the numbers anyway, but he is in a position to lead the campaign against it being voted in by a referendum.
There is one issue where amalgamation seems quite crucial, even to the point of consorting with the political enemy, in this case the neighbouring National Party MPs, former Napier deputy mayor Anne Tolley in Gisborne, and Tukituki MP Craig Foss in Hastings, so long as everyone's on the same track.
The mayors in his constituency have made it clear they want the Napier-Gisborne rail open again, Mr Nash says, and adds if there's one thing they all agree on it is more needs to be done to grow the regional economy, for which the rail may be an essential.
"Wouldn't it be great," he says, "if myself, Craig Foss, Anne Tolley, the mayors, and the chairman of the regional council, go to Wellington with a united front."
It's difficult to get a word in as passers-by stop, frequently, to convey their congratulations and best wishes, the broad grin one of elation despite the party hammering at the polls. But it is an indication a Nash will be back at the helm in the party, although hardly gnashing at the bit, and with no intention of tackling the Nash-family record in Parliament, (Sir) Walter's 39 years.
It's not like he learned the trade from the former Prime Minister.
He wasn't even a year old when Sir Walter died in 1968, and his father, was not particularly politically inclined, although more of a "social democrat" who as a lawyer saw his role more as making friends out of clients rather than money.
But someone noticed he might be a leader of the future. He seemed to be captain of most of the rugby teams in which he played, although his attributes as a flanker were not enough to win a First XV place at Napier Boys' High School, where he was Second XV captain two years in a row.
Before returning to Napier, he had been director of strategic development at Auckland University of Technology, and in more recent times had commuted to the Queen City as executive director of its the AUT's Manukau Campus, while launching a two-and-a-half year campaign to get Napier back for Labour, its stronghold until the nine years which ended with his win last Saturday.
At the end of a busy week, he turns back to rugby and plans to watch 9-year-old son Charlie play for a Napier representative team. Backing the boy, as it were.
