Barry Soper: The irascible Trevor Mallard

Assistant Speaker Trevor Mallard in the Debating Chamber, Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

If ever there was your classic poacher about to turn gamekeeper it'd have to be the irascible Trevor Mallard.

The firebrand, but likeable MP was nominated this week by his caucus colleagues to become Parliament's next Speaker, in the pecking order, the third highest office in the land after the Governor General and the Prime Minister.

As a senior minister in the Helen Clark Government, she was often heard to sniff "that's Trevor" when he landed himself in hot water.

Next week when he's sworn into the job he'll have to decide what's Parliamentary and what's not even though he's been on the not side on a number of occasions.

Once telling an IRB official to ram a bottle of Heineken where the sun don't shine when, as Sports Minister, he was miffed at us missing out of hosting right for the Rugby World Cup to Australia, would fall into that category.

But it's inside Parliament's beat pit, dealing with the grizzlies, that he'll be expected to maintain decorum where on more than the odd occasion in the past he's upset it.

The most notable was ten years ago when he invited fellow scrapper Tau Henare to step outside when the Opposition MP made a snarky remark about his personal life.

The matter was settled with a fisticuffs, more befitting a seedy bar than the luxurious lobby where the pair were prised apart.

Clark wasn't impressed, exhorting both men to have a look in the mirror.

In fairness to Mallard, he was willingly escorted to National's offices by Clark's deputy Michael Cullen where he proffered an apology to another man who's no stranger to a bit of biffo, Gerry Brownlee.

Prising himself away from a mirror to have his say on the altercation was Winston Peters, who at the time leapt to Mallard's defence.

He reckoned there should be less of all "the hectoring, lecturing, prissy, doogooder, PC, pointing-the-finger at Trevor Mallard because he made one mistake."

Peters said he knew of a lot of people who got into scraps and most of them were utterly innocent.

He reasoned you should be entitled to defend yourself rather than rushing off and pleading "Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, someone touched me."

Of course he knew of at least one person in that predicament, himself, when as deputy Prime Minister in the Bolger Government he had a dustup in the same lobby with a fellow Cabinet Minister John Banks who accused him of assault.

So the next Parliamentary session with Mallard maintaining order should be an interesting exercise in self restraint.

It's rather curious though when you consider the only time it's permissible to get physical in Parliament's bear pit, is when a reluctant MP is dragged from his seat towards the Speaker's chair to assume the role after his or her nomination's been accepted, which of course is pure theatre.

Perhaps Peters should be invited do the dragging!